Dropping Out in Place

We had another massive haul of tomatoes today. We may get to try that canning thing after all. The weather is spectacular and sunny again. It has to be the last days, but we'll take it.

Over the past few years, I've signed myself up for quite a few newsletters and emails on prepping, homesteading, survival, etc. A lot of them have a pretty questionable political bent.

One of my favorites is the "Homestead Survival" site. Today's article was "How to Escape Society and Become 100% Independent."

The idea appeals to me. I will not lie. In a section of the article under the heading "Gut Check" it asks what your motivation might be:

• Is your decision to escape motivated by a general discontent or contempt for society? Are you tired of the press of people, of traffic, of working for someone else, and being a wage slave?
• Do you feel a lack of connection with what you were doing? 
• If dealing with the noise, aggravation and interaction inherent to being a “single cell” of a larger “organism” has you questioning your life choices you might be a good candidate for escaping from society wholesale.
• If you are also getting prepared for the inevitable decline or even total collapse of society, perhaps in the wake of some other catastrophic event, you might save yourself and your loved ones a ton of risk and grief by getting away from population centers before you are forced to in the mad rush that will inevitably follow.

Check, check, check, and check.

So we need to do everything in our power to practice self-sufficiency, and learn the skills we need to cut the cord to society. Timothy Leary was right. We should "turn on, tune in, and drop out," reducing our dependence on the psychopathic death machine fueled by the daily insanity of social media and the horrors of "digital world." 

"It won't let me," when directed at a computer that won't function properly, is among my least favorite phrases in the world. "Computer says 'no.'"

But the suburban homestead offers most of this along with health insurance and retirement benefits. Hence, "dropping out in place." Unfortunately, as Motorhead put it in "Lost Johnny," "There's always trouble waiting when you leave your own backyard" as, this morning, when I had to deal with rush hour traffic (during a pandemic!!) and a dog that just about flew off its leash at me when I was out for my run). Still - I'll take the compromise, as we're still novices.

Maybe someday, when we're a lot better at the homesteading, we'll be able to get out of town. For the time being, and especially given our crop results this first year, it's probably better to stick close to our unfortunate "civilization." Like Gandhi is reported to have said when asked "What do you think of western civilization?" I think it would be a good idea.