Over the years I’ve written some things on this weblog that are worthwhile reading for newcomers. To save folks the trouble of combing through hundreds of posts to find them, I’ve collected links to them here, and added a bit of explanatory text.
Simple living
Although our transition to the farm was sudden, the decision followed a long stretch of studying and thinking. When we reached the decision, I thought it would be helpful both to me and my readers to summarize our thinking, so I wrote a series of posts which laid out my understanding of somw key elements of simple living, along with ways to incorporate them into one’s own life.
In pursuit of the simple life
An introductory post explaining what I mean by “the simple life,” and why I thought this series was worth writing.
Stay home
Nothing complicates one’s life more than living large parts of it away from home. This is probably the most distasteful aspect of simple living to the modern mind, but I think it is foundational.
Do it yourself
To me, homesteading centers around providing directly for your own needs, as opposed to earning the money to pay others to provide for them.
Avoid mass media
We gave up on broadcast television seventeen years ago, and have since eliminated nearly all other news sources. As a result the fog slowly but steadily lifted.
Avoid busyness
Busyness feeds our sense of self-importance, while hiding the fact that we aren’t accomplishing anything of value.
Avoid efficiency
The desire to be efficient keeps us enslaved to modern industrialism. It is good and right to cultivate a sense of “enough,” and to enjoy it once you have it.
Do what you can
Grandiose plans can induce paralysis. One small step towards the goal is not only an accomplishment in itself, but it makes the next step easier to see, and easier to take.
Build a family economy
Family life changes for the better—radically so—when each member is able to contribute, even modestly, to the family’s wealth.
Wrestle boredom to the ground
Rather than enduring an empty life by filling it with distractions, learn to take satisfaction and pleasure in things that have true value.
Cultivate simple tastes
Simple pleasures are rich, deep, and lasting—but only if you know how to appreciate them.
Do it for the kids
There’s no point to pursuing such difficult, radical changes in how one lives without a worthy goal. Ours is to make a proper life for our children, and their children after them.
Think again
Upon reflection, you’ll be surprised to discover how many things you do without having any good reason to do them.
Be skeptical of the benefits of technology
Does that beloved gizmo actually improve your life, or does it bring with it hidden costs that far outweigh its benefits?
Beware of chronological snobbery
Cultivating a disdainful attitude for old things not only jettisons the treasures our forebears carefully preserved for us, it turns us into credulous consumers of any new wind of doctrine.
Treat causes, not symptoms
Eliminating a bit of complexity from our lives does just that—eliminates a bit. Finding and fixing a root cause can eliminate vast amounts of complexity that it gave rise to.
Tend your own garden
This project is so large that it’s too hard to know if you’ve found the right path. Give your neighbor a break and refrain from preaching about virtues that you’ve hardly established in your own life.
The ecological nature of life
Life must be lived in balance. A simplification requires not only the elimination of one factor, but a restructuring of the remaining elements of life into a new pattern.
Getting things done
I enjoyed writing the Simple Living series so much that a few months later I decided to write another series, this one on a topic I’ve pondered for many years. I look at a few areas where it seems to me that people are often crippled by a wrong attitude, areas where a right attitude can make all the difference in being able to do what needs to be done.
Introduction
In which I note that the degree of all-around competence expected of a man has been lowered greatly over the years, not to our credit.
The prime stumbling block
Strangely enough, things often don’t get done because people pour their efforts into doing the wrong things. Why? Because they’d rather do those, instead of the things that need doing.
Avoid busyness
Activity is not work if it accomplishes nothing. Be sure that what you are doing will actually get you closer to your goal.
Don’t get stuck in the foothills
In order to reach a long-term goal it may be necessary to abandon shorter-term achievements.
Is this trip necessary?
Too often we embark on a task whose cost in time, energy, and expense far outweighs any benefit we might gain from it.
Go find something to do
When you see a job that needs to be done for the sake of the household, you don’t pass it by simply because it isn’t your assigned responsibility.
Acquire a taste for low hanging fruit
Sometimes it’s not even possible to know what your goal should be until you do a little exploration. Look for easy ways to try out new things.
Starting out
Starting out can be great fun, a time for making more detailed plans, for gathering information, for choosing and purchasing tools, for learning the new skills you’ll need.
Examine your motives
Be sure that you choose a particular path because it is the best path to your goal, rather than a justification for new toys or fun activities.
Seek out good teachers
Good teaching is worth its weight in gold. The cost of a good book is negligible if it teaches you something useful. And a live teacher can teach you things no book can.
What to do next
Some examples of how to create and execute a plan.
What to do next (2)
Some more examples of how to create and execute a plan.
Avoid procrastination
Some suggestions for how to avoid paralysis when confronted with a complex project.
Set achievable goals
If you know the general direction you want to go in, the best way to make rapid, steady progress in that direction is to constantly set yourself achievable short-term goals.
Do it for real
It is better to try to move in a general direction than to work out a careful and detailed plan that tells you exactly how to get there.
The lost tools of living
This series of posts was cannibalized from a shorter (and tighter) article I wrote for a newsletter project that I had to abandon. The title is a reference to an essay by Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning,” in which she argues for a return to a traditional model of education. Since I am suggesting a return to a traditional model of living, the reference is apt.
Introduction
In which I describe the path that led me to begin studying agrarianism.
Supplying our needs
In an agrarian culture, nearly all one’s energy is devoted to supplying the needs of one’s family. In an industrial culture, nearly all one’s energy is devoted to earning the cash needed to buy what one’s family needs. The difference is fundamental.
The family economy
In an agrarian culture, the life and work of a family are integrated, rather than the two separate spheres found in industrial culture.
Training up children
In an agrarian culture, the education of children is an integral part of the family economy, rather than a function of the state.
Knowing your neighbors
Unlike industrial man, agrarian man has a very limited sphere of involvement, but within that small sphere he can actually have an effect.
Many hands make light work
In an agrarian culture work is a communal activity to be shared and enjoyed, rather than the isolated individual activity of industrial labor.
Responsibility
In an agrarian culture, individuals are responsible for their actions and the actions of their communities. A key change that made possible the large-scale businesses of the industrial era was the diffusion and limitation of liability for collective action.
Do for yourself
We become more agrarian as we continue to stop hiring people to fulfill our responsibilities and begin to fulfill them ourselves.
Conclusion
“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” (1 Thess. 4:11-12)
Other posts
I’ve written a few other things that you may find worthy of your attention. Here is a list of some of them.
