My Grandkid's Farm

Most of the time when I post on some message board it is about "Doing". This is a place for me to ruminate on the point of it all - all the doing that is.

One thing I have realized in web posting from time to time is simply seeing my own words on a screen helps me understand the things I feel in a more concrete way - Chew my mental cud in other words.

So while I'd be happy to hear input or have others take something away from whatever ramblings I come up with here, I guess this is really more for me and hopefully my grandkids someday.

But you are welcome to eaves drop...

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What I what to hash out in my mind is how it may be possible for future generations to "Advance to the Past", not by retreat but by taking the best of what we've learned about science and technology and downsizing it to a more human scale. Or put a different way, take the lessons of the past, good and bad and combine that with lessons of the present, good and bad to create something better than either.

Obviously, my thoughts are to a future of little farms and tight knit little towns where I hope my grandkids will one day live.


Speaking of tight knit, there have been arguments why industry, agriculture or even culture in general, may or may not be sustainable or even moral raging since way back. And Bumper Sticker Slogans are nothing new either, the derogatory term Luddite comes from a mostly mythic figure who inspired tradsmen to go around trashing hosiery looms in the early 18th century - not out of fear of technology but anger at it's effect:

The knitting machines which provoked the first Luddite disturbances had been putting people out of work for well over two centuries. Everybody saw this happening -- it became part of daily life. They also saw the machines coming more and more to be the property of men who did not work, only owned and hired. It took no German philosopher, then or later, to point out what this did, had been doing, to wages and jobs.

--Thomas Pynchon
Is it O.K. to Be a Luddite?

So I'm not a Luddite in either sense, not in fear of technology, nor anger at the machine. But by the same token I don't have fear of the opposite either, which would be the fear that at some point technology will fail to save us - which I'll call Peterism, or just fail and kill us, which I guess would be HALism.

I guess I'm more of a Claptonite. The key is to use any resource whether it be natural or man made, to it's best use before it's gone and those things that you can preserve, don't ever let go.

Its in the way that you use it,
It comes and it goes.
Its in the way that you use it,
Boy don't you know.

And if you lie you will lose it,
Feelings will show.
So dont you ever abuse it,
Dont let it go.