Reject Modernity, Embrace Intelligent Traditionalism

Communal Experience & Farming Traditions

Welcome to the Agrarian Neo-Feudalist Future.

Having left the darkness of modernity to embrace the light of tradition I thought I should speak to some of the unexpected and surprising (to me at least) experiences of this journey.

One would have thought an agrarian life would be, well, monotonous & boring. I am myself somewhat surprised to tell you it is anything but... One would have thought a life of tradition was vapid & stagnant. Wrong again...

Let me enlighten you to one such example. An example in which I was completely unaware of when I embarked on this journey.

The Colosseum

Did you know that the last vestiges of the Roman Colosseum still exist in rural agrarian life? Where the men still gather in the communal spirit of the game. A place where your position in the hierarchy is on display for everyone to see!

All over the countryside in the small towns that dot the valleys men still gather to conduct this weekly ritual. They gather their flock and take their best stock (or more often their worst, as one man's trash is often another man's treasure!) and they insert that stock into a ring where men assess each individual animal's value (correctly and incorrectly) and put that perceived value on display for all to see.

The pride you feel as you see your hard work and toil traded for hard-won shekels.

I really mean this. It is like CES for Uber-geeks or the John-Deere expo for Farmers. Except it matters this time. The silent anticipation as you see your pride and joy enter the ring whilst the bidding commences…

The eponymous Livestock Auction…

The Seasons.

I barely noticed the seasons when I worked in Silicon Valley. At least, I noticed them to the extent that they annoyed me. You would have thought that when it rains in Redwood City the drivers suddenly commence as if 3 feet of snow has blanketed the ground.

Now, I look forward to the Winter rains, the Spring emergence, the slow pace of the Summer sun, and the retreat into Darkness once again in the fall.

How many Seasons are left in your life?

How many more chances do you even have to try new ideas with your farm? You can count almost exactly how many chances you will get from now until you die. Instead of reiterating in the same work day after day, the moments seem so much longer, life seems so much fuller now.

The Work

I wake early in the morning as the first glimpse of dawn approaches the snow capped mountains. I bundle up and head out to my flock to ensure everyone is still healthy and present with the herd. Any cast-aways from the herd society are sick. The herd has no trust for a newfound invalid. The herd is a rational society protected by the old ancient Anatolian canines that live and embrace the herd.

When I was a young man, I hated chores. Why do people gather pets that have no purpose, other than to provide unnecessary toil for man? In the city I kept a cat indoors. Now they live where they belong, outdoors.

My chores, my herd, my canines have purpose. I will gladly and happily tend to that purpose, as I have assembled them for this purpose.

Many projects await me each day. We have to provide our own electricity. We have to provide our own water. We have hay and feed stacked on pallets and covered with tarps. When those pallets become worn we strip them bare of their broken boards and we reuse them to build us bookshelves and the things we need. We have chickens and a garden which needs tending. We also turn apples into a hard cider brew; which coincidentally is much easier than one would have thought. I cannot believe all the time & money I wasted on libations prior to this life… Don't get too excited, it takes at least a month to make a decent hard cider. Instant gratification is a thing of the past!

When the chores are finished, it is time to enrich the mind. On pleasant days I heat up water in an old metal trough and I soak. I find this homemade jacuzzi is the best medicine to relax the muscles, the soul and to stimulate the brain. I save the water of course.

As the sun begins to wane it is time for the afternoon chores then to prepare dinner for ourselves.

The news of the day is absent from our lives, although every acquaintance we meet, whether a neighbor or at the auction, loves to inform us of what is happening in the real (or is it hyper-real?) World.

People outside our agrarian world are wrapped, not in contemplative thought about their own life, but the lives & actions of people in a far away urbanized centralized swampy waste-land.

As the Sun begins to descend in the distance and darkness envelops our farm, we sleep easy as the adventures of each day make us look forward to the next.

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