Part V – The Myth of Self-Reliance
Eventually I had to burst the bubble, right? While a person can do a lot of things for themselves,, true self-reliance isn’t real … or, at least, it is very, very rare.
Individually, we are amazing creatures capable of so much. But it is when we connect with others that the truly miraculous begins to happen. Partnerships can create families or companies. Groups can create emotional support or raise buildings. And hundreds of us together can change the world.
The whole reason why the internet works is because we crave connection. We use social media to keep track of siblings and cousins and long-ago friends. We use databases to learn, share our own work, and find out what discoveries are being made around the world. We collaborate through electronic clouds and make real changes in an instant. It’s powerful and it’s spectacular, but I’m here today to remind you that other, older forms of connection matter just as much.
Physical connection, in-person connection, has become sort of an outdated idea. We lament the loss of compassion and caring for one another, the trust we used to feel with our neighbors, and the closeness of Sunday dinners with family. Zooming in for lasagna just isn’t the same. We need to create space to reach out and touch someone.
When you’re trying to take control of your food, you are faced with much the same thing. This is where the real work starts. We have to rebuild our physical community, and that’s not easy. The first step is to identify what you can and cannot accomplish on your own. This part is hard, and it might even hurt. You will have to engage in a lot of soul-searching, real introspection, and a realistic assessment of the resources you have to call upon while you make changes.
In our case, land is severely limited. We can’t keep large livestock, and we can’t grow crops that require massive acreage to produce enough to feed us. For those things, we need to find people we can trust that have what we lack. Difficult, but not impossible. We have partners who keep cows and pigs, others who grow crops we can’t manage, and even ones who keep bees. These are the kinds of people we’re choosing to build our circle and to become our new community.
On the other side of this is BEING a good neighbor. Give more than you take, help wherever and whenever you’re able, and don’t take advantage. An endless supply of people you can use and abuse is fantasy. There are also no endless piles of goods to be had for the asking. If all you do is take, the well will eventually run dry.
Basically, do as much as you possibly can for yourselves; find like-minded people you can trade and share with; and treat every person you care about as if you couldn’t live without them. Because you can’t.
I love the age we live in (for the most part). The tools that the information age has given us are many and wondrous. Millions have used these tools to carve out lives they never could have dreamed of in my generation. Knowledge has never been easier to acquire. But, with the good comes the bad. Taking advantage of others is at an all-time high. Distrust and fear have understandably grown in response. Most alarming to me is that this constant bombardment of cherry-picked reality has the mental health of our children in a downward free-fall. This has to stop.
The solution is strategic disconnection from our devices and re-connection to our environments and our people. We can only accomplish that together.
Producer Partners
Family and Friends we count on through thick and thin!
Happy New Year to all of you from all of us!
Keep Growing!