Subsistence Farming - Hawaii

I was talking with my wife, Karin the other day about how I feel about our farm and the world situation, and she said,”We need to revise our mission statement. We’re not telling the truth about why we’re doing this project”.

I’ll tell you: I used to have lots of idealistic energy about teaching people how to live more sustainably, and creating a model of a farming lifestyle which is enjoyable. In the past, I have told people that our permaculture project is an experiment. I would have considered myself successful in my purpose if a hundred people emulated the way of life at our Farm.

In many ways, I think it’s too late for that.

I still have some of that energy, but less. If someone wants to learn, I am willing to share, but I am not shouting from atop my soapbox. I am finished being an advocate. I am going to take care of myself and my family.

Years ago, a common phrase in my mind in response to global problems was,”We just need to get together and take action”. Now, my more common response is, “It’ll all be over soon”.

To a large extent, I am trying to put myself in a situation in which I can avoid or minimize the negative effects of the current global collapse. I am trying to save my ass. I’m not so concerned about creating an experimental model. So there it is. My new mission statement is that I want to live a long and healthy life full of awareness and growth, and everyone else can go screw themselves.

I’m more cynical about education. For the most part, people don’t want to know how to grow their own food. There is something going on. When I talk to people, there seems to be a gap.

For example, many interns who stay on our farm seem to have a clear understanding of the global crisis currently unfolding, yet they almost without exception return to their previous lives without missing a beat. When I say farewell to an intern who has become my friend, and witness them resuming their regular life, I feel like screaming. It is reminiscent of saying goodbye to a friend on the sidewalk, and watching him waving and looking back at me as he steps off the sidewalk, oblivious, into a street full of rushing cars and trucks.

The words paralysis, numbness, denial, addiction come to mind. There seems to be an affliction which prevents people from fully inhabiting themselves, and living with all four tires on the road. Perhaps people are not fully making contact with life, the body not really living on the earth. It reminds me of my own experience of watching suspenseful movies:  I seem fully engrossed, but my body isn’t moving during the show, and when it’s over, I simply get up, have a snack, talk about something, and yawn and curl up to sleep.

I feel shock, and grief about this. People don’t seem to care whether they live or not. Even people who speak as though catastrophe is imminent don’t put their action in alignment with their apparent thoughts. I suppose the disease runs deep. I have forgotten how to feel grief, rage, fear, confusion, hopelessness, just to name a few. Instead, I generate disappointment, annoyance, stress, judgementalism, anal precision etc. as a substitute. The tendency is to generate states of being that dissipate and waste energy, and destroy focus and purposeful inspiration.

Often, I will seek out a vicarious or cathartic substitute. I will generate these events outside myself. That way I can witness from nearby the feelings that I cannot directly experience. So, I am not acting upon my unsettled feeling about the current world condition, but I watched the movie. I don’t practice yoga (or political action, or farming etc.) but I own several books about it. I often feel disconnected from my self.

Perhaps people feel attracted to disaster because it acts as a substitute for having one’s own feelings. People want something really bad to happen, because they hope deep down inside that maybe it will make them feel something. Or maybe I know that if I witness some chaotic event or some act of violence and talk about it enough that it will be very similar to having a present feeling.

Likewise, maybe if I am disappointed and annoyed in my friends and coworkers all day long, that at the end of the day wouldn’t that be a good substitute for a full strength experience of rage and grief? Rage and grief at god, the earth, my alienation, at all sorts of things that hurt and don’t make sense?

I am beginning to see how deep the source of the problem runs within each individual psyche. I see how long the journey to health is within myself, and I realize that it really is too late. And then, at the next moment, I walk my happy little life and forget about it.