posted 2 years ago
This is a topic about everything... and nothing in specific at the same time.
When you are trying to figure out the "solution(s) of what you are going to do" what are the questions which drive that?
What philosophical limitations do you place on the questions you'll ask?
For instance someone with strong vegan beliefs may refuse to use any animal products no matter how useful, may refuse to use animal labor even if it makes the workday harder, etc.
I share this because for me I realize that the questions I was asking at different times in my life (including when I first joined these boards and barely read or dropped in from time to time) has given me radically different directions to consider in...
Like at first my biggest struggle was figuring out what was the minimum money I could possibly spend for housing materials. I didn't even ask (I should have) how many hours I would spend ramming earth into a tire, or a form, I was enamored with anything free or cheap or recycled/upcycled and made plans around that. When I was closer to 30 I figured i'd have all the time in the world, but I had absolutely no money in the world.
How much time it takes to do all this neo-pioneering stuff began to enter the questions I asked alot more as I got around 40. I read up on people living off the grid and it sounded cool, but I couldn't figure out how to live far enough from town, commute in an hour, hold a job, and then get back to milk cows, feed chickens, harvest crops, mend clothing, build a barn addition, chop firewood, let alone ever get the place built in the first place. The work never ends and there's a reason why a '40 hour workweek' was considered an IMPROVEMENT on alot of industrial age life 100 years ago. (not necessarily on the prehistoric economics closer to 14-20 hours a week that hunter-gatherers typically had, but that's a separate topic)
After some serious setbacks and injuries I had to ask very different questions about not just money and time but flat out physical ability. Spend months on your back unable to walk or healing after a surgery and it'll change your perspective believe me. That plan for the 3 story house "because a cube is energetically more efficient than a single level ranch layout"? Definately out the window. Those thoughts about how much money you'll save struggling to DIY low wage work that you could hire unskilled or mostly unskilled people to do like dig a ditch, mend a fence, or maybe chop and stack some firewood? Suddenly far less interesting. That new auto wrench set that will let you save all that money you imagine by doing ALL your own car repairs as you struggle to move under the vehicle with a creeper as you go into a back spasm or fight with a dislocated shoulder to get that CV joint out? Hmm maybe you don't need those tools afterall, maybe you just need someone you can hire with those tools...
How have YOU changed over time? What questions did you ask decades ago (with what philosophy) and when (and why) did it change to something else?
Are you resisting the next change you have to make too? :)
I'm finding myself going back to college and grad school where I wont graduate until my 50's hoping I will make enough more money over my largely unskilled past to still be worth the trouble, simply because the kind of job and work i'm willing/able to do in trade is something I should be able to do into my 60's, 70's, or 80's if I have to. And all the things I used to do that I no longer want to do and would rather just pay someone to do are not things I want to do, even if I could, or still pretended to have the time, because I don't.
Time is always the ultimate currency we measure everything in, and things that save time or let you do a 'capitalistic exchange' of your time (potentially something skilled and valuable) for someone else's time in a way you both win. Maybe it takes you 2 hours to do that brake job and it takes them 1/2 an hour. Even if you pay them twice what you make in an hour you both win. Maybe you make $100/hr and you hire someone to dig ditches at $20/hr. You've just amplified your free time by hiring a guy instead of trying to do it all.
Where am I going with this? There is a 'wisdom' and a logic and a reason for everything we do, culturally, socially, etc. I look at our world with frustration alot of the time, and for many years I chased what I thought were better solutions only to be forced to come full circle on at least some of them feeling like i'm back where I started and if i'd known I would end up back here I wouldn't have bothered with the journey. Sometimes I realize that other people I disagree with are just going through their own circle of 'coming back around' and will eventually figure it out, hopefully not too late for all of us.
Yet in reality it's not actually a waste to go through that cycle. Sometimes we need to validate what we are told instead of taking someone else's word for it. Sometimes we discover new and valuable things along the way. Sometimes we really do find a better way to do something, maybe not everything, but a few key somethings that are worth sharing. Sometimes we totally destroy the foundation of what we were looking under originally in good faith just hoping we'd find something solid to see it's rotten, and have to demolish it, and good riddance, and thank goodness we didn't spend the rest of our life continuing to believe such worthless crap!
I rambled a bit... its late on a sunday and I was bored. :)
But seriously... how has your own overall general philosophy of things like homesteading changed and what questions did you ask at the time? And did philosophy help or hinder you asking those questions?
I'm definitely taking to heart some things like "the perfect is the enemy of good enough" having me wish i'd started many things sooner instead of endlessly researching for better solutions. I recognize the need for community including local trade and exchange. I'd like to live totally rurally but things like competent hospitals better be not TOO far away or it could cost you your life. I've learned that even if you've drawn a line in the sand saying "i'm willing to die rather than let this be crossed" that the world has a way of calling you on that claim and seeing if it really is true. I've recognized that as frustrating as other people are at times, we have nobody to rely on but each other so maybe it's better to find ways to get along than always look for things to be mad about, even if you know dang well that it's all their fault! ;)
I feel like i'm both playing catchup on 'things I wish i'd learned decades ago' while also being full of knowledge and insights that i'm positive are useful to somebody even if i'm not exactly sure who it is just yet or where to share what I know.
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