It has been some time since I did a musing of something a bit more personal about what is going on out here. Below is simply an unedited version of a journaling I did recently. I gave my 50’s do developing our farm. Most of this blog chronicles the building of the place and how things work. Anyone who has followed this over the years understands the ecological and social issues that made us drop out and build this place. For my part, there was a deeply personal aspect to it as well. That being disillusionment made violently manifest. I turn 59 in less than a week. While ages and dates don’t really mean much to me, there is a part of me that wants to see this farm work of art shine and support us in a way that the previous 58 years were not able to. Sure, I give thanks for the fact that I was a successful business person and yes, there is a certain privilege to being able to say the things I have here – so what? This is raw, unedited and hopefully will give you an idea what happened personally to drive us to go where very few have gone. It is my sincere wish that others can build their Shire and escape the trappings of a completely insane culture. We all deserve it no matter what our sociopathic society says. Peace.

THE FARMER’S GREAT RESET.  

TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF.  CREATING NEW HABITS.  LIVING THE LAST THIRD UNAPOLOGETICALLY AND AUTHENTICALLY.  GOING INTO A YEAR LONG RETREAT TO ALLOW EVERYTHING TO TRANSFORM.  

What Is Your Great Reset?

Living on and completely immersed in the farm like an artist or a writer is immersed in their craft.  Leaving the world and going inward.  Finally living without judgment or fear of belittlement.  To transform physically and mentally to let the authentic self have life unapologetically.  

I hate us.  I can’t stand the state of affairs in the world any longer.  Therefore, just like I went no contact awhile back, I am going to become a Hermit or Recluse in my 59th year.  I can’t develop the way I want to as a farmer-artist, painting on my canvas, unless I can slow down, cut myself in half physically, and tune out the insanity of the U.S. We are a certifiably insane species.  The Pandemic illustrated it, exposed people for who they are, and I want no part of it.

I gave my 50’s to creating this farm.  It came out of me like a composition written out by Mozart.  I just kept going and going and, suddenly,  it is all here.  The last piece is to let myself inhabit this canvas and live completely merged with what it can do.  So the last year of my 50s is to restore my health, unleash my true self, and live here as a Hermit would – Cut off from the world, not leaving the Shire, using ordering methods to get things we need, and being the driver or conductor of the farm making this piece of art sing. I guess I am talking about the death of an old self.  “Die before you die and then realize that there is no death.” – Eckhart Tolle.  I deserve to have a life of peace and contemplation.  I earned it.  There is so much about this world in which I was raised and the experiences I have had, to prove it.  Not being wanted, being abused, and the absolute whirlwind of an existence that brought me to this point and still be alive.  This is now on my terms.  The biggest task I have is to “decommission the warrior.”  To let the Hulk go and let the warrior sit by the fire and smoke his pipe.  I don’t need to be armored up like that any more and, as my therapist said, “there is no doubt that if the warrior is needed, you are so good at bringing him up, you will be able to call on him if and when needed.”  I have the battle scars to remind me of it all.  But from now on, the artist, the scientist, the painter, the grower of things, is now in charge.  How that happens is the puzzle, because after 58 years, old survival habits die hard.

To paint on this canvas that I dedicated my life to must be a slow and simple life; A life without the stresses of the outside world;  A life devoted to the simple pleasures that our farm affords us.  It is going no contact with all of society, keeping in touch only to stay abreast of things of normal responsibility.  People make everything up.  They tell themselves stories in order to survive.  In other words, it is all lies and I will not live in lies anymore.  We are a psychopathic, uncaring, lot.  One need only look at the history of the last century, all the wars and brutality and death, to see that humanity is certifiably abusive and insane.  The only way to have a good and peaceful life is to leave.  

Old habits to be rid of:

>Not caring for myself.  Even writing like this feels foreign.  It makes me shake and feel guilty because, after all, this is selfish according to that horrible Calvinist upbringing I was forced to endure.  Priority number one has to be good diet and exercise.  Not powerlifting or biking to god knows where.  Simple stretching, walking and resistance exercises with the TRX Band.  A diet based on JAZ Farm food and the foods we buy in bulk.  

>Drinking wine to calm down.  The substitute for the rev up with coffee and slow down with wine needs to be a complete slow down of my life.  The Thich Nhat Hanh “Just drink your tea” habit applied to everything.  This isn’t a substitute way of doing the same things that caused my pain, it is a complete redevelopment of me.  Thus, I am going full on hermit for my 59th year. It is about controlling my thoughts, stop thinking, moving slowly and deliberately avoiding everything that has caused me such duress in the past.  Calm, Quiet and Slow.  

>As Jennifer Aniston said when asked how she kept in such good shape she replied, “Don’t eat shit.”  That is the foundation of this.  Taking the time to fix healthy food, not drink to escape, and allow myself to isolate and not flee the farm.  After all, I am leaving the farm to eat crap under a tree to try to escape my thoughts and fears….. which, of course, I take with me because they are in my head.  Replace the dopamine hits from fast food and wine with living deliberately, simply and slowly.

So these are the main habits to kick in this year long retreat:  Don’t eat crap.  Don’t drink wine to escape.  Decommission the Warrior and cease the hyper-vigilance.  Don’t neglect yourself.

So conversely then, what are the new habits to develop to allow the farm artist to flourish in the last third of his existence?

> Wake up slowly.  Ease into everything and hurry nothing.  Not even if Zina is raring to go.  Let her do it and follow as you see fit.  After all, you work on the farm every day.  Wake slowly and catch the thoughts that create those awful mountains and make your whole existence seem insurmountable.  Don’t think about all the things that “Have to be done” all at once.  Arise, stretch, go about the morning tasks and chores and let yourself begin the day with a gradual re-entry into the world.  You know that with your back’s side effects you can’t just jump out of bed and get moving anymore.  Take it slow.  You know it can take a couple of hours.  Be accepting of that fact.

> Walk.  Every day.  Walk.  Start slowly and over the course of this year long retreat, become the walker/hiker you used to be.  In other words, embrace the things of your past that give you contentment and jettison the rest.

> Use the TRX Band to rebuild your legs (A TRX Band uses your own body weight as resistance instead of having to use weights or weight machines).

>Stretch

> Cut yourself in half.  Your extra weight is the symbol of all the stress and abuse you have endured and how hard you fought and how much you denied yourself for everyone else.  Lose the weight as the symbolic gesture of not needing the warrior and the armor. See shedding of weight as a victory dance, a giant “fuck you” to everyone that tried to destroy you.   In order for you to paint requires your physical health.  Do not let the world steal this from you any longer – NO fast food.  NO processed food, wheat or sugar.  Eat JAZ Farm food that you cook.  There is no better diet than that.  Stay on the farm and eat real meals and don’t eat snack food thinking that cooking or heating something up is too much work.  All that is an excuse to neglect yourself again.  It is what you did to survive.  Stop self-loathing and your diet will come automatically and sustain you and clear your head.

> Slow your daily life down by an order of magnitude.  While there are the daily chores and gardening, nothing HAS too get done in a hurry.  Those days are over.  Using the current pig pasture changes as an example: it needs to get done to accomplish the pig breeding goals, but it doesn’t need too all be done in a day.  What you used to do in a day, do in a week.  Enjoy the process and take care of your body.  You need a lot of rest after your career and building the farm and overcoming things that should have killed you.  Part of the self-care is doing just that, regardless of whether or not someone else wants to run.  Move slowly and deliberately, doing what you want to do and not destroying yourself in the process.  No one you know has done what you have done.  There is nothing to prove…. Just be the farm artist.  No Hurry.

> Stop thinking.  Stop gluing yourself to the outside world via the news and such.  There is nothing you can do for the world that you aren’t already doing.  If you think of something new, great, then you can explore that, but for daily sanity, devote yourself to your craft.  Drop out of society and thinking you have to stay hyper-informed like you did for work and the need to feel safe.  You are safe here and should an event occur that needs your attention, you will certainly find out about it.  As you have told others, “One could drop out just like not following a soap opera, come back in a year and not have missed a thing.”  It is all awful and insane.  Protect your own sanity and your own path of achieved enlightenment and ignore it.  Pay attention only to those things that further your farm art and self-sufficiency.  You owe no one anything.  You tried that and it burned you for decades.  Quit putting your hand in the fire now that you know it will always be hot.

>Continually walk away and leave the insanity to the outside world.  They are not your concern.

To sum up the new habits:

Walk, stretch and resistance train.

Wake up slowly and ease into the day as you need to, keeping your mind calm so as not to catastrophize and build mountains.

Cut yourself in half and eat right using the foods you so expertly raise and process

Slow your daily life down by half, making life a meditation

Don’t think and stay present

Ignore the outside world and only leave the farm to hunt and gather as necessary (not running  to escape – remember, your head comes with you) Escape comes from controlling your thoughts.)

Stop thinking and staying hyper-informed.  Work methodically and when you don’t feel like it….don’t.

Use this journaling to help keep you focused and help keep your true self from becoming buried.

Don’t speak unless necessary.  Don’t argue points because people and their opinions are usually ignorant and uninformed.  Whether or not you are right…. It doesn’t matter. 

Be reborn in the likeness in your head.  Create yourself unencumbered.  Create yourself in your own image.  You deserve it.

After all, it isn’t that you don’t know who you are.  The real you was just bullied into submission for most of your life.  The time to keep doing that to yourself is over.

So who am I and where is all of this leading?

“Decide what kind of life you really want and then say “no” to everything else.”

I am:

An introvert that really thinks his species is a disgusting viral catastrophe incapable of regulating itself or doing things for the common good.  As a result, I choose not to be with them.

Creative.  After all, look at this place.  There is nothing else to say.

Enlightened.  In my reality, I know that the wider society is completely asleep.  I don’t know everything but I know enough and hope to keep evolving towards my higher self.  My old self was completely for defense.  The self that was imprisoned, is real and awake.

A farmer and rancher

A painter on the earth canvas, a nurturer of the land and a rejector of human “progress” and its destruction of the planet.  I seek to heal the small portion of the earth upon which I dwell.

A Prepper.  The threats from modern society are real.  I and the farm proved we are able to endure during this pandemic.  My only hyper-vigilance is to make sure we continue to prepare for the hell scape that is civilization.  If I have a mission that keeps me tied to staying informed it is that.  Water, food, shelter, medicine, defense……. Repeat.  I enjoy doing it and we are pretty far along that path, so it too, needs to be methodically maintained, not done out of panic.  

A weaver.  I want to create my weaving.  I would love to have a presence where people can buy my wares like a painter sells paintings at fairs.  

A Homesteader.  I love raising animals and have them provide us food.  I love gardening and preserving what we have grown.  I love making cheese and making soap and butter and cooking delicious, healthy food. I love the old ways. I am just not able to work as hard to build things as I used to be at the beginning of this escapade and am completely burned out from it.  

A believer in the here and now issue of catastrophic climate change.  There is no prepping for this.  However, the blinders that people have on regarding it also makes me need to drop out.  Ignorance, without a desire to become educated, is one of the greatest disgusts I have for humans.  They have completely exposed their true colors.  Between denying climate change, the refusal to do anything about it and the stupidity revolving around the pandemic, I am through with humanity.  It is quite likely that when I reinforce these new habits, this year long retreat may very well become permanent.  

A lover of animals.  I would have dozens of goats, chickens, turkeys, pigs, donkeys, dogs and cats.  Human beings are not the most intelligent species on the planet.  The animals are.  If you doubt it, come spend an afternoon with the donkey farm gurus.  They will absolutely set you straight.  Shit, I’d take our goat bucks in rut year round over people in expensive cars and business suits.  With the former, you know where they stand, the latter will stab you in the back when you aren’t looking.  

So for the next year, I will be leaving the farm as little as possible.  I will be working very hard at developing the new habits that I deserve and that the farm was designed specifically to support.  I will still be posting and doing the occasional videos and things, but I created my own Shire after throwing the ring of power into the fiery mountain and I intend to take full advantage of that privilege. This is my promise and birthday gift to myself. It is high time someone lived up to their promises – even if it is me promising me.

There is nothing else I care about.  I have, in my book, done it all.  What I have accomplished and endured would have killed most people.  The warrior, still, refuses to let me die.  For that I am grateful.