I live suburban rural. Far enough away from the small town that we hear trains but not ambulances, close enough to get groceries or go to the market, and high enough to see 4 towns' fireworks plus the backyard ones. You mentioned the disappearance of aches, pains, and digestive woes. It's funny how the body can slip so easily into self repair when the nervous system perceives safety.
First, standing ovations for this piece. This speaks to the soul, and your poetic-yet-lakonik tone of voice quiets (or ought to quiet) the inevtiable "Yeah, but..." that city-folks usually throw up as rationalisations.
Of course, living in one of the areas of my nation that is a white spot on the "inhabitants per square kilometer" which means an average of 0 per sqkm, I'm as biased as can be.
Funny thing is, there are lots of areas that are even more sparsely populated and remote, up North. People clustered in villages of 100 to maybe a dozen, or just one or two persons.
There's a woman in her early 70s living about a three hour walk from here, all alone on her fäbod. Some cows, three horses instead of a tractor, pigs, rabbits, chickens, sheep and goats. Apart from her Ford pick-up truck and the solar panel on her roof, it's 19th century. I think the oldest logs in her oldest cabin/hut were dated by some dendrologist from a university years ago. 13th century or older. Talk about maintaining tradition.
I grew up in a town of little over 200 people, and if they didn't know me, they knew my family. Moved to the city when I got married. Now, in a farm town of 4,000 that was founded in the 1860s, at the older edges of it.
It's quieter. I know the neighbors. One stopped by to tell me that a tree was growing up through his fence on my side of it.
A simple conversation, and two days later, I cut it down—no middleman or arguing.
I watch hawks fly and foxes play.
In the four years here, I've heard one gunshot. It's quiet and I like it.
This is why I enjoy living out away from the subdivisions. I'm not as far out as you... probably about midway between the city and your world, but there's similar benefits and, you're right, when people come out for a few days, they change.
I sat down and burned through all three essays in one go. Well written, and more than a little inspiring. I'm a bit torn between my pangs for a simpler life, closer to the Earth, and being old enough not to want to toil for life's basic necessities. Alas, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.
Bear in mind, too, that I am doing this as raw as it gets in today's world. I wanted to do it the hard way, for a very large number of personal reasons. There are easier ways, ways that involve a lot less toil, and also ways to make life more basic and direct regardless of environment.
That's very true. I take your root point is getting closer to the Earth helps in escaping the hedonic treadmill society suckers the credulous into expending their lives upon.
My root root point is that the hedonic treadmill is driven by mediated experience, and that the more direct and natural you can make your everyday experience, the less treadmilly, less stressful, and more meaningful life gets. Close-to-the-Eart is a fantastic way to do it all in one step (and I really love it), but I think you can also do it piecemeal by bringing out the human, the direct, and the complex in your personal world.
I'm glad you highlight the distinction, which I sensed, but neglected to mention. I've been essentially a city kid all my life, but at the edges of the zoo, which afforded the opportunity for balance. Also, I tend to be allergic to anything everybody's doing that I have adopted things on my own terms, which has been protection against most mass-insanity events.
I'm stealing "conquering women". Also if if the method to "keeping cool on a hot day without air conditioning" can be done without me moving and isn't simply not being a pussy it needs to be a standalone unfolding the world.
This piece is great! Re: “don't underestimate the hidden benefits of hiking in the forest! The sorts of patterns you find in nature stimulate deep parts of the human neurology in ways that are difficult to replicate artificially”, I think the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis can explain a lot here. It’s why I find hunting in the backcountry so so important for my mental health.
I write about this in an essay on the phenomenology of hunting. I’d love for you to read it!
Outstanding read. One of our daughters and her children moved to a rural community last year. The wife and I planned to follow.
But as I turn 60 this year, yet have met some important health goals, in the back of my mind I wonder if I can “hack it”.
I’ve let doubt creep in, and I wonder if I’ve been sandbagging some of the action items that need to be done to facilitate the move. Not in the financial sense, but getting the house ready to sell and on the market.
I see a tremendous difference in my grandkids since moving out there. Maybe it would do me some good as well.
I'm not sixty yet, but I'm no spring chicken. My neighbor is 70 and built like he's made of pipe cleaners and leather.
We live in a world with machines like tractors and log splitters--you can hack it unless you're very foolish about how you hack :-) It will do you a world of good, I'll wager!
Since my grandkids are there, I’ve spent a lot of time in this small community. School programs, volleyball games, and some ag events. My grandson is raising a goat to show in the county fair in a coulle of weeks. Everything I’ve seen and experienced within this community has been extremely positive.
Small town community have their gossip and cliques but as a whole, it’s neighbor to neighbor, community first. I love it.
My current suburban enclave is showing it’s age. We have a lot of rental and lease homes. People come and go, properties are as well maintained. The homeless and transients are using our neighborhood to get from panhandling corners, to encampments in the green spaces.
If you could exchange your early life when you lived in the city for life in rural America would you do it? Or no regrets and a little city living is good for us at some point in life
I live suburban rural. Far enough away from the small town that we hear trains but not ambulances, close enough to get groceries or go to the market, and high enough to see 4 towns' fireworks plus the backyard ones. You mentioned the disappearance of aches, pains, and digestive woes. It's funny how the body can slip so easily into self repair when the nervous system perceives safety.
First, standing ovations for this piece. This speaks to the soul, and your poetic-yet-lakonik tone of voice quiets (or ought to quiet) the inevtiable "Yeah, but..." that city-folks usually throw up as rationalisations.
Of course, living in one of the areas of my nation that is a white spot on the "inhabitants per square kilometer" which means an average of 0 per sqkm, I'm as biased as can be.
You got me beat on pop density. I'm at like 1.5/sq km if my imperial-to-metric conversion math is correct.
Well...at least officially. Up on my mountain it's sparser :-)
Funny thing is, there are lots of areas that are even more sparsely populated and remote, up North. People clustered in villages of 100 to maybe a dozen, or just one or two persons.
There's a woman in her early 70s living about a three hour walk from here, all alone on her fäbod. Some cows, three horses instead of a tractor, pigs, rabbits, chickens, sheep and goats. Apart from her Ford pick-up truck and the solar panel on her roof, it's 19th century. I think the oldest logs in her oldest cabin/hut were dated by some dendrologist from a university years ago. 13th century or older. Talk about maintaining tradition.
(https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A4bod)
Sorry but there's no English version. Basically, it's a Summer pasture with log cabins.
I'm a pretty social dude, so I would definitely want to either import seasonal friends or make trips out, but it sounds glorious nonetheless :-)
Between late May and late August, she sells produce and milk and stuff to tourists, to stretch her pension-money, so she meets some people.
And she's smart enough to keep it on the QT so the taxman and other official parasites don't come sniffing around.
Bedtime for me now, it's 2300 here.
Sounds grand :-) Thanks for stopping by!
I grew up in a town of little over 200 people, and if they didn't know me, they knew my family. Moved to the city when I got married. Now, in a farm town of 4,000 that was founded in the 1860s, at the older edges of it.
It's quieter. I know the neighbors. One stopped by to tell me that a tree was growing up through his fence on my side of it.
A simple conversation, and two days later, I cut it down—no middleman or arguing.
I watch hawks fly and foxes play.
In the four years here, I've heard one gunshot. It's quiet and I like it.
This is why I enjoy living out away from the subdivisions. I'm not as far out as you... probably about midway between the city and your world, but there's similar benefits and, you're right, when people come out for a few days, they change.
I sat down and burned through all three essays in one go. Well written, and more than a little inspiring. I'm a bit torn between my pangs for a simpler life, closer to the Earth, and being old enough not to want to toil for life's basic necessities. Alas, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.
Indeed!
Bear in mind, too, that I am doing this as raw as it gets in today's world. I wanted to do it the hard way, for a very large number of personal reasons. There are easier ways, ways that involve a lot less toil, and also ways to make life more basic and direct regardless of environment.
That's very true. I take your root point is getting closer to the Earth helps in escaping the hedonic treadmill society suckers the credulous into expending their lives upon.
Very close.
My root root point is that the hedonic treadmill is driven by mediated experience, and that the more direct and natural you can make your everyday experience, the less treadmilly, less stressful, and more meaningful life gets. Close-to-the-Eart is a fantastic way to do it all in one step (and I really love it), but I think you can also do it piecemeal by bringing out the human, the direct, and the complex in your personal world.
I'm glad you highlight the distinction, which I sensed, but neglected to mention. I've been essentially a city kid all my life, but at the edges of the zoo, which afforded the opportunity for balance. Also, I tend to be allergic to anything everybody's doing that I have adopted things on my own terms, which has been protection against most mass-insanity events.
Adam Karaoguz recommended this essay. He was right to do so. Solid thinking/writing, JDS. 👏
"In wildness is the preservation of the world". -- Thoreau
https://www.walden.org/quotation-category/nature-the-environment/wildness/
You are most kind. Thank you :-)
Ah, yes. The Eagles.
They had some bangers.
I'm stealing "conquering women". Also if if the method to "keeping cool on a hot day without air conditioning" can be done without me moving and isn't simply not being a pussy it needs to be a standalone unfolding the world.
This piece is great! Re: “don't underestimate the hidden benefits of hiking in the forest! The sorts of patterns you find in nature stimulate deep parts of the human neurology in ways that are difficult to replicate artificially”, I think the evolutionary mismatch hypothesis can explain a lot here. It’s why I find hunting in the backcountry so so important for my mental health.
I write about this in an essay on the phenomenology of hunting. I’d love for you to read it!
https://open.substack.com/pub/backcountrypsych/p/phenomenology-of-hunting-a-cure-for?r=1kxn90&utm_medium=ios
Outstanding read. One of our daughters and her children moved to a rural community last year. The wife and I planned to follow.
But as I turn 60 this year, yet have met some important health goals, in the back of my mind I wonder if I can “hack it”.
I’ve let doubt creep in, and I wonder if I’ve been sandbagging some of the action items that need to be done to facilitate the move. Not in the financial sense, but getting the house ready to sell and on the market.
I see a tremendous difference in my grandkids since moving out there. Maybe it would do me some good as well.
Thanks for the observations and sharing.
I'm not sixty yet, but I'm no spring chicken. My neighbor is 70 and built like he's made of pipe cleaners and leather.
We live in a world with machines like tractors and log splitters--you can hack it unless you're very foolish about how you hack :-) It will do you a world of good, I'll wager!
Since my grandkids are there, I’ve spent a lot of time in this small community. School programs, volleyball games, and some ag events. My grandson is raising a goat to show in the county fair in a coulle of weeks. Everything I’ve seen and experienced within this community has been extremely positive.
Small town community have their gossip and cliques but as a whole, it’s neighbor to neighbor, community first. I love it.
My current suburban enclave is showing it’s age. We have a lot of rental and lease homes. People come and go, properties are as well maintained. The homeless and transients are using our neighborhood to get from panhandling corners, to encampments in the green spaces.
It’s time to forge ahead.
If you could exchange your early life when you lived in the city for life in rural America would you do it? Or no regrets and a little city living is good for us at some point in life
The difference between that life and the one that I wound up living are so vast that I couldn't imagine the consequences of trading one for another.
OTOH, had I known how manageable it is to do things this way, I'd have made the move a lot sooner as an adult.