Clearly, we love a conflict, to pick a side, root for the team, experience letdown at defeat and exhilaration in victory. We love our quick dopamine hits: the Facebook post that generates a fast 50 loves and the vote count that suddenly swings our way. More than anything, we love to have an enemy, an other, on whom to focus our frustration.
Mustering patience for anything other than an immediate result is tiring to the spirit. So we eschew the path that requires time, cooperation, and uncertain outcome in favor of the sure but temporary win. We embrace the Pyrrhic victory, placing the laurel on our heads even while standing on the bodies of our own troops.
In these contests there is no room for the individual to stand at the 30-yard line and hold up both hands, saying, “Stop!” To ignore the onrushing team and shouting crowd, refuse to chant with the cheerleaders on the sideline, is the conduct of a fence straddler, a milquetoast, a loser.
To suggest a middle ground while one side marshals masses of shock troops and the other encourages outliers with assault rifles is seen as a capitulation of Chamberlain proportions. Suggest, however, that both teams are playing the wrong game, that different rules are needed, that the stadium itself should be decommissioned, and shouts of “Heretic!” reverberate from the stands.
The farm, I submit, is an ideal off-ramp to exit the battle. It’s a quiet, sequestered space where a person might practice losing his mind in order to find it. On the farm, there is no winning side; every success is built on the combined efforts of the players. The farmer can only garden long term in the same spot if he works in concert with the soil. The cabbages he eats need the manure of the sheep and his own labor in order to grow. The fence is built much easier with the aid of the neighbor. The grass depends on the rain and the sun to flourish. The lamb is butchered only with a thoughtful coalescence of effort: a provision for future generations, a conservation of resources, a debiting and crediting of natural outputs and inputs….
a large white oak log on the sawmill
Milling a pine log (Trevor)
oak log on the sawmill, cut into 1 inch thick planks.
If we are to yell at our neighbor instead of asking for assistance, expect the cabbages to grow again without replenishing their plot, slaughter and eat all of the livestock at once, then we might enjoy momentary gratification. But, be prepared, the next season will be one of want and loneliness, the laudations false echoes off the ridge and the crown of laurels we wear on our head withered.
