I am really liking this thread! I am optimistic that permaculture will spread more and more, but slowly and quietly since it will not be endorsed by popular culture. Word of mouth is everything! I was born in '94 and thankfully I went to some hippy charter schools which helped with getting a connection to nature at a young age, and continually through the grades. Exposure is everything!
I did not go to college which has been considered some great tragedy in my family, although no one else went to college, and no one else seems to be chomping at the bit to pay for it...so why would I be so desperate to do so? If I decide to go, I have to accept the debt will be on my shoulders alone! So why, at young impressionable ages when you want to impress your family (and more importantly, everyone else) does your very same family encourage you to jump into debt, and something that does not teach real skills, nor does it guarantee a job, and we know it doesn't teach you basic finance. Shouldn't our parents know better than to take this wildly bad gamble with our future? So strange.
Anyway, I have been working for the past 5 years and it is not great, pretty soul sucking, actually. For the most part however, I am in a better financial situation than my friends who went to school and are now making it on their own, with debt hanging over them, and college appears to have been pretty soul sucking as well. I am more prepared to buy land, or a house, than I would have been if I had just graduated college two years ago. I also have more extensive work experience. How were we sold on the idea that college will make life easier better richer faster? If anything, people have an extended adolescence to wade through before reality finally hits them.. just strange! Also, my financial situation is really not that good! It is better than many, especially the homeless that surround me constantly, but just by not having debt I feel like I am in a much more free position...
Ironically, I am considering going to university for sustainable food systems, a B.S. Really this is my "reasonable" excuse to move somewhere moderately rural and to spend my time and money going to PDC's and anything else I can get my hands dirty doing, while I am gaining residency in the new state. I will have to be in an apartment to start in this new place where I know no one, but hopefully my BF and I will be in a flexible lease, and able to look at land/houses sooner rather than later.
What matters is following your heart and doing something purposeful. I have been wistfully observing the permaculture world through my computer screen, and I at least know that this is the purpose I want to fulfill. I constantly talk about permaculture to other people, and I am so excited to physically be involved at last. I will see if University really ends up happening, probably only if it is financially viable and doesn't interfere with getting some land. I still feel drawn to school for the social and networking possibilities more than anything else...and now I have a very clear idea of what I would want to study, at last. Part of me wonders how much I will really gain? Is it just to put my family at ease?
I feel ahead of my peers in certain ways, but I still feel so behind in every other way compared to adults of the past. By my age my grandmother had all three of her children years ago, their house was being built and expanded by my grandfather, and they were not rich by any means! Why do we think we much have x amount of dollars before starting our families and lives? The basics are so lost, and as I find that they are what I really want, and what I could have learned from my family instead of being indoctrinated my whole youth... by now I could be really established if passing down knowledge was a cultural thing. I am trying not to wallow in feeling unaccomplished, but I really am unaccomplished! Why are we waiting longer and longer to get life started? I feel like I should have had 20 children and a productive garden with a cob house by now! LOL! Really though, there are so many gov't mandated distractions that keep us from our true potential? because it is more profitable to have us controlled- is my guess.
Totally a wild long winded rant right now, but I wonder if people relate!
We are moving from stinky, expensive CA to mysterious (to us) Northern Idaho, soon. No exact dates set, but probably before the summer of 2019. I would love to meet anyone and everyone interested in permaculture and the like, I am SO yearning for like-minded folks. Or even not that like-minded, just genuine!
This post was not written very well so please, forgive me! Just blowing off steam from figuring out the logistics of our move, and also I am feeling excited to be finally moving toward a permaculture life, little by little. Many mixed emotions. A cycle of sad/elated to be moving away from family. Extremely excited to get out of this job. Nervous about getting another job I hate after moving, just to "make things work". Absolutely stoked to see another part of the country! Nervous about snow, and snow+gardening-experience=disaster? Cycles of stress/excitement/sadness/happiness everyday. What a life!
