sustainability

Sustain Sufficiency

sustainability

The fall has come here at our new forest/farm.  The renovation on the bathrooms is almost finished and the months past have flown by.  The question still remains: is self sufficiency a pipe dream, is it possible?  This discussion, I’m sure, is common in households that have decided to turn their backs on the supermarkets, the food-consumer concentration of non-sustainability, and suburbs that offer comfort and the all-consuming security.

First, self-sufficiency.  The problem, it seems, is energy.  How to sufficiently produce and continue to produce the energy that it takes.  There are two possibilities: add to the energy production or take away from the energy consumption.  Alone, there is no option: we must take away our need for energy to be self sufficient.  So, self-sufficiency becomes a community approach to living at some point, which (in order to be moral, to be healthy and to be virtuous) must be sustainable.

Second, sustainability.  The problem is energy.  How to continue to sufficiently produce the energy that it takes to be self sufficient.  There are two possibilities…

So while self-sufficiency and sustainability are not the same they are reliant upon one another: to sustain self-sufficiency we must have sustainable energy sources.  This is the catch and the secret.  This is the unending education that I am reminded of as a look out over my new acreage  and feel the damp coolness seep in, watching the golden leaves fall.

I throw another log on the fire and sip my hot coffee.

The Community of the Self Sufficient

self_sufficient

To be self sufficient is a personal thing, not unlike so many who just want to “get away” and have everyone leave them alone.  I am, and was one of those.  However, things often must change, and do.  NOFA puts on event up here in New England, and I went to a hog butchering class today.  There I realized that to be self sufficient, there must be a community.

It does sound strange, but it is, and always has been, true.  In the cities we often forget this fact of independence.  Often we can live around millions of people and be completely alone.  This is sad, true, but it is only because there are communities of self sufficient communities of people that support such lifestyles.

Aloneness is important.  Being alone we can often find our “true self”, and what we find is often a bit disconcerting.  But the self sufficient ought to be able look that self in the eye every morning and meet it head to head on those nights when we wake up feeling so alone and vulnerable.  One way to do this, is to realize our dependence on healthy communities.

Unfortunately, self sufficiency is often correlated with those who have opted out and see survival as a pile of rations and guns.  This is a misconstrued view of self sufficiency.  Self sufficiency is an education and there are many great teachers out there that are willing and often able to teach those willing to learn.  To realize that the community of the self sufficient are not these radical outliers one only has to reach out to learn, well, to be self sufficient.

At the class, there were seven of us, we each took turns learning to cut the 1/2 hog in such a way that would do justice to the animal, and to those who had, and will continue to create a community of the self sufficient.

Focus

focus

I’ve read a rather telling aphorism once: the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged on how it treats its animals. I think Gandhi was quoted as saying it. Nevertheless, the aphorism both horrified me and struck me as very true. I wonder, as Wendell Berry and others like him have often done in the pages of their essays, if the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged on how it treats its land? At the very least, I believe that how we treat animals and the land around us is a consequence of what we think of each other and ourselves.

Up to this point, this blog has considered perspectives that do not put human beings as a centered focal point but rather as a part of a greater reality, one which is grounded in objectivism. That being said, I would like to explore the homesteading theme, the environmental and creative themes that have been addressed from a perspective that does consider human beings as a center focal point. First, look outside of your window and consider what is important to human beings. Secondly, consider the cost of putting a value on that human importance.

Homesteading, small-scale farming (whatever it may be called) seems to be one of those human endeavors that shifts importance from the farmer to the farm: its environment and its animals. Of course, there are exceptions. However, those exceptions aside, I believe that this desire of some to be a part of an environment that is greater than themselves rather than to think themselves as greater than their environment comes from a deep-seated understanding that whatever our convictions the reality remains: we are not important.

Some view this as humanistic blasphemy. However, viewed from the point of view that we are part of a greater whole, the admission that we are not important leads us to ask: what is? I believe that those that have discovered the possibility of homesteading on a small-scale sustainable farm have realized what is important. Truth is important and sustainable practices in all their forms are a part of this truth. This is often presented within the framework of environmental arguments, but those arguments assume that the environment is somehow innately important. I would have to disagree: the environment is important because it reminds us that we are completely and absolutely dependent upon it for happiness not to mention our survival. The truth is, we are not important to the environment, but our environment is of utmost importance to us.

However, we do not seem to be interested in the truth of our situation: our total and utter dependence upon the environment for our happiness and survival. It seems that we put importance upon the façade of independence and the fascia of truth. The façade and fascia of independence and truth are much easier for us to achieve than is the achievement of true independence and the realization of Truth (capital T intended).

If we value comfort, then comfort will be prioritized over all else as will ease and wealth and whatever else we deem as valuable. I think that how we treat animals and the environment as a whole does mirror our false assumption that we are the focal point of the world we live in. Although the world cannot and does not care, we can and perhaps we need to start valuing our capacity to do just that.