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We’ve all met that person that talks about how they want to run away from our industrial world and live on the farm. They might even be us. Us or not, such dreams usually are a little, well, bullshit.
Living on a farm is hard. You gotta work with the weather, you have to time things, you have to get really dirty and bloody. Even if you avoid all the legal and other crap with Big Farm companies like Monsanto and John Deere, it’s work. Also your local small town is boring.
I think there’s this idea in people’s heads about farming as a simpler, uncomplicated life. It’s not of course, but thanks to a lot of bad television, films, and propaganda, there’s this idea it’s some simple, noble life.
OK, the propaganda isn’t bad as it obviously convinced people, but still.
As much as I recognize this weird delusional retro-faux-Americana for what it is, I actually think there is something there in this desire to be on the farm. It’s just not stuff that a lot of farming and ideas of farming really brings. Within the delusion is a desire for something deeper, and possibly less butcheirng-a-pig intensive.
Farming promises clarity. Put something in the ground and it’s food. Raise an animal and it’s food (and other materials). It’s bounded and obvious. You know – sort of – what you get.
Farming promises cycles. Seasons come and go. Rain comes and goes. Things grow and are harvested. There’s a regularity to it, even if our changing climate is currently messing with that.
Farming promises connection. You eat what you raise in many cases. You live in the seasons. You know the land and the sky.
Farming promises reliability – even if we know it doesn’t always deliver. All that clarity and cycles and connection is predictable and gives you a sense of power. You do this, you get food, you eat, you go on.
I think, down deep, sincerely a lot of people who fantasize about farming and similar ways to run away just want that clear, predictable, connected, reliable life away from what feels like a lot of bullshit. They’re just tired of things that mean nothing to them, are shallow, and are annoyingly unpredictable.
When you watch the stock market crash because a cryptobro is found inebriated dressed as Naruto in front of Grand Central Station so people sell stock in his company? You can kind of get behind “maybe too much of life is stupid.”
I’ve been thinking about this because of tales and legends of heroes, sages, and so on that had phases of living on a farm or retiring to one. There’s that desire for simplicity and reliable cycles, and maybe I’m not up for a farm but know what? Maybe I can bring those things into my life.
I can reduce the bullshit in my life. I can avoid overcomplication. I do work (medical IT) that keeps me in touch with reality. I can focus on and cultivate predictable, reliable things. I can make my own “farm” by cultivating things that grow and sustain in life. Friendships, connections, a career that is connected, hobbies that bring me closer to others, and so on.
Plus, seriously, just avoid things like skeevy crypto stocks and the like. We all know that leads to Grand Central Station Incidents.
Steven Savage