I wrote recently that conscience is a harsh master. Comfort is a master too though. Our society ensures it. I am not fully self-sufficient. I don't always eschew access to the accumulations of power/capital so easy to peruse on our supermarket shelves. And the months during which I do live from my own resources often feel like an act of madness.
This inversion has required the effort of a panoramic and unilateral marketing machine though. Hiding the beauty, belonging and meaning of real existence - to light a fire for heat, to sacrifice a life for meat - takes an all-encompassing attack on our senses.
But it also takes our consent.
Comfort is our consent. We are able to withdraw it.
Yeah you're right. As the story goes, the liberated hebrews often enough crave the predictability of their old life as slaves in Egypt. I think the withdrawal of consent always involves risk and loss, and those risks hit differently for different people. I'm inclined to think that a total withdrawal is an impossible fantasy for most. Perhaps a brave culture of mutually supportive incremental withdrawal is possible.
Yes. I believe this is possible. I think those with land need the help of those who want the lifestyle but can't see the pathway without capital. There was a website - Diggers and Dreamers - that tried to help to connect the two, but it wasn't very good. There is Woofing and Workaway obviously - but this is temporary and operates on a very particular structuring. Nonetheless, Fran and I met this way. Even individually, the transitional is certainly incremental. This is year 5 for me and will require significant physical effort above just living in order to take the next step: a new large-scale potato patch must be fenced. That post rammer weighs 40kg but I'll need to lift it 70 odd times to get the uprights in! We need to construct a hayloft this year in order to replace the tarp covered stack. These are tasks where many hands would make much lighter work. We're talking about Workaway again. We're also incorporating a nonprofit to skills share the more pleasant elements; the goatherding and cheesemaking.
All of which is to say, we are with you - and with all those who wish to withdraw from a world they do not believe in.
Maybe this is a little off track, but I was just thinking about how much the system makes us dependent on it, so much so that- depending on your birthright and place- just to learn the basic practical skills of "sufficiency" requires an enormous amount of energy, not to mention the "metaphysical" skills. But I think "self-sufficiency" (not to quibble) is part of the Imperial con. I think this might be what Bayo Akomolafe means, ultimately, by "fugitivity:" once we've fallen through these cracks or walked out into the desert (hopefully with goats following close behind), we are able- in David's language- to "aright" or at least to experience some sense of "arightedness." I mean, in the cracks, when the Empire falls (as it so clearly is doing in front of our very eyes, even as it grabs at our shirt tails to take us with it), we should be helping you with your hayloft...This is only half a thought but I'm posting it anyway.
Akomolafe's website is so fancy that it takes our mountain internet 30mins to load a page!
It's fugitive country here, I think. The incoming hippies of the 70s took to the hills but their children - my generation - have become part of the fabric of mid Wales - a landscape and a culture that was always marginal. Always a sanctuary within the cracks.
You would be very welcome here Jack, and we would feed you well. It's a good view, even in the wind and rain and mud.
I really don't want to hijack David's comment section any further with my tangents, though I could blather on for a bit, but I will indulge myself this much: A couple nights ago, I had a dream that bordered on the visionary if it had not been so absurd (like my own dream was mocking me) but at one point- after a big pronouncement- I heard and saw the word, "Wales." I live in New Mexico, so Wales doesn't come up often. I will take this little exchange as a sign that there is something here that requires my attention.
That's a spectacular piece of synchronicity, Jack. New Mexico is a dream to me and always has been. The one place in the world I still want to see before I die.
Here's one for the ether, or to hold in your hat: if you come across the sea, try me.
I love this line: "Perhaps a brave culture of mutually supportive incremental withdrawal is possible." My last several years of thinking were inspired by Barry Lopez's book of stories called Resistance. Each interlocking story is about someone who is leaving where they are, going into some kind of hiding. And I think of LeGuin's painful Walking away from Omelas. The big question for me is- withdrawal to where? or to what? is this just a figurative withdrawal or is it time to make places or (as I mentioned earlier) go fugitive, let the land move us on?
Just to say I can't tell you how much I appreciate this post and these comment threads today. I woke up having turned 52, and immediately had the phrase 'a year of forgiveness of debt' in my head, after prayer, seemingly from nowhere.
I think art, and religion, and imagination, and story telling, and being child-led, are some of the modes for a generative and sane kind of madness. I sense these things converging these days in a way that feels hopeful, and rather like static before strange weather. I also think those things can be dangerous without embodied experiences of marginal realities keep them truthful and rooted. What I mostly crave is to go together. I need help to dabble in necessary madness and stay well.
I wrote recently that conscience is a harsh master. Comfort is a master too though. Our society ensures it. I am not fully self-sufficient. I don't always eschew access to the accumulations of power/capital so easy to peruse on our supermarket shelves. And the months during which I do live from my own resources often feel like an act of madness.
This inversion has required the effort of a panoramic and unilateral marketing machine though. Hiding the beauty, belonging and meaning of real existence - to light a fire for heat, to sacrifice a life for meat - takes an all-encompassing attack on our senses.
But it also takes our consent.
Comfort is our consent. We are able to withdraw it.
Yeah you're right. As the story goes, the liberated hebrews often enough crave the predictability of their old life as slaves in Egypt. I think the withdrawal of consent always involves risk and loss, and those risks hit differently for different people. I'm inclined to think that a total withdrawal is an impossible fantasy for most. Perhaps a brave culture of mutually supportive incremental withdrawal is possible.
Yes. I believe this is possible. I think those with land need the help of those who want the lifestyle but can't see the pathway without capital. There was a website - Diggers and Dreamers - that tried to help to connect the two, but it wasn't very good. There is Woofing and Workaway obviously - but this is temporary and operates on a very particular structuring. Nonetheless, Fran and I met this way. Even individually, the transitional is certainly incremental. This is year 5 for me and will require significant physical effort above just living in order to take the next step: a new large-scale potato patch must be fenced. That post rammer weighs 40kg but I'll need to lift it 70 odd times to get the uprights in! We need to construct a hayloft this year in order to replace the tarp covered stack. These are tasks where many hands would make much lighter work. We're talking about Workaway again. We're also incorporating a nonprofit to skills share the more pleasant elements; the goatherding and cheesemaking.
All of which is to say, we are with you - and with all those who wish to withdraw from a world they do not believe in.
Maybe this is a little off track, but I was just thinking about how much the system makes us dependent on it, so much so that- depending on your birthright and place- just to learn the basic practical skills of "sufficiency" requires an enormous amount of energy, not to mention the "metaphysical" skills. But I think "self-sufficiency" (not to quibble) is part of the Imperial con. I think this might be what Bayo Akomolafe means, ultimately, by "fugitivity:" once we've fallen through these cracks or walked out into the desert (hopefully with goats following close behind), we are able- in David's language- to "aright" or at least to experience some sense of "arightedness." I mean, in the cracks, when the Empire falls (as it so clearly is doing in front of our very eyes, even as it grabs at our shirt tails to take us with it), we should be helping you with your hayloft...This is only half a thought but I'm posting it anyway.
Akomolafe's website is so fancy that it takes our mountain internet 30mins to load a page!
It's fugitive country here, I think. The incoming hippies of the 70s took to the hills but their children - my generation - have become part of the fabric of mid Wales - a landscape and a culture that was always marginal. Always a sanctuary within the cracks.
You would be very welcome here Jack, and we would feed you well. It's a good view, even in the wind and rain and mud.
:)
I really don't want to hijack David's comment section any further with my tangents, though I could blather on for a bit, but I will indulge myself this much: A couple nights ago, I had a dream that bordered on the visionary if it had not been so absurd (like my own dream was mocking me) but at one point- after a big pronouncement- I heard and saw the word, "Wales." I live in New Mexico, so Wales doesn't come up often. I will take this little exchange as a sign that there is something here that requires my attention.
That's a spectacular piece of synchronicity, Jack. New Mexico is a dream to me and always has been. The one place in the world I still want to see before I die.
Here's one for the ether, or to hold in your hat: if you come across the sea, try me.
rebbecca.ray@mindless.com.
This kind of hijacking can go on all day. I am delighted.
I love this line: "Perhaps a brave culture of mutually supportive incremental withdrawal is possible." My last several years of thinking were inspired by Barry Lopez's book of stories called Resistance. Each interlocking story is about someone who is leaving where they are, going into some kind of hiding. And I think of LeGuin's painful Walking away from Omelas. The big question for me is- withdrawal to where? or to what? is this just a figurative withdrawal or is it time to make places or (as I mentioned earlier) go fugitive, let the land move us on?
Just to say I can't tell you how much I appreciate this post and these comment threads today. I woke up having turned 52, and immediately had the phrase 'a year of forgiveness of debt' in my head, after prayer, seemingly from nowhere.
5 hours later this is all making more sense.
This is so wonderful to hear. Birthday blessings to you Caroline
Any tips for entering the state of mild madness appropriate for imagining different?
I think art, and religion, and imagination, and story telling, and being child-led, are some of the modes for a generative and sane kind of madness. I sense these things converging these days in a way that feels hopeful, and rather like static before strange weather. I also think those things can be dangerous without embodied experiences of marginal realities keep them truthful and rooted. What I mostly crave is to go together. I need help to dabble in necessary madness and stay well.
Do you have thoughts to add?
These few lines might require their own post.
Amen!!
🙌🏻