Regret

I've long held the following proposition:

It is better to regret what you've done than what you have not done

I know it isn't quite complete. I suppose one cannot sum up the whole world in one sentence. So take it with a grain of salt. But generally speaking, I think it is better to commit a sin full on rather than commit a sin of omission. The world in which we live is constantly trying to push us into submission - to stop doing what we want to do, and do what we should do. Well, there is a place for that. When you define "what we should do" as "What God would have us do". But when "what we should do" is defined as "What something either internal or external is pushing us to do", why, that is a different story, my friend.

Given what I know of the universe, God is a pretty ambitious guy (think "created universe"). If you are that ambitious, and you create man in your image, you pretty well expect man to be ambitious as well. I find greed to be a rather contemptible trait, yet greed is simply ambition without compassion and meaning. Greed is the core of a good thing, but some of the critical components have been stripped away, so it is no longer good. Greed is like a man holding a knife - you can wield a knife to carve a statue, to prepare a meal, and so on. But if you wield that knife to cause destruction - to vandalize, injure, or kill, why, it isn't quite so good, now is it? Greed is not the knife - it is the man holding the knife. Greed is a bad application of a good tool. The tool is "ambition". The application is "serve thyself".

So, let's get back to the point - it is better to regret what you've done than what you have not done. Yes, I've done some things in my life that I aughtn't to have done. Most of those I think of but rarely. Things that I wish I had done plague me. "If only I had taken that opportunity when it was there!" Ah! For the sins I have committed, I've generally paid some penalty. For the opportunities I've missed, the penalty is a haunting regret.

I implore you - take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. You will find that you won't live forever, and some opportunities are presented only once. Carpe diem -
who cares if you make a mistake now and again. If you make a mistake, you will pay the penalty and move on. If you pass the opportunity, there is nothing but regret, and no end to that.

I did tell you about the grain of salt, did I not? There are mistakes that you don't want to make. There is a time for restraint. There are things so egregious that you don't want to do them, you don't want to regret having done them. But it is generally the weakness of man that we more frequently regret missed opportunities than regret misdeeds.

So what is my point? My point is this - when you are pressed by an opportunity, seize it. Do what you can do to live enthusiastically, joyfully, fully. Do not spend your life regretting that you didn't play that game, or try that strange food, or talk to that person or whatever other thing you may not have done as a result of fear. Pick up your sword and shield, and get in the battle. Fight it like you mean it.

And if you can't do that, put on a set of headphones and listen to "Wooly Mammoth" from the album "Music for Two" by Bela Fleck and Edgar Myer. It just might give you the courage to carry on.

Why did I Decided To. . .

Why did we decide to homeschool? Why did we move out to the country? Why do we do any o f the things we do? Well, I don't think I know much about my motivations for most of what I do until after I've started. But let me tell you what I know now about why we moved to the country (maybe I'll get to the homeschooling topic sometime later).

So, why did we move out to the country? Why are we raising chickens, cattle, goats (arriving soon), pigs (arriving a little later), and so on? Well, I guess it seems a natural extension to the whole "eco" thing. We try to conserve energy and reduce pollution in all that we do. We try to break out of the blind consumer lifestyle in favor of a lifestyle that is softer on the world ecology, that our children may be able to enjoy the clean air and wonders of nature that we enjoy. We don't even need to mention the potential for catastrophic issues with the environment. The simple enjoyment of a walk through the woods is enough motivation for me to reduce the harm we do to the environment.

So, why did we move out to the country? Well, it was to take that next step, to be more "eco". Yip, all I need to do is move out to the country, stop using fossil fuels, stop using harmful chemicals for fertilizers and insecticides, and voila! I've saved the world. Yes, good people, I moved out to the country to save the world. I didn't know it at the time, but as I put it all together, I realize that that was more or less what I thought I was doing. Just as I thought I was saving the world by recycling while I lived in the city.

You see, it wasn't so obvious that I could not single-handedly save the world while I lived in the city. Living there, everything was so dependent on the infrastructure that was so inherently damaging, I knew that there was so much more that I could do. Now that I am here, I take stock of what I've got. Sure, there is more that I could do to get more eco. I could stop using electricity, stop using my tractor, stop using the city water, stop using plastics entirely, stop using automobiles, stop using batteries.

Guess what? I just figured out that I am only one out of some six billion people on the planet. I can't save the world. At least not by reducing my own impact on it. If I want to save the world, I need lead other people to change their habits as well. In fact, one doesn't have to be a math major to figure out that getting 10 people to redure their impact by 10 percent would have the same effect as me reducing my impact by 100 percent. Of course, those are rough numbers - it assumes we all make the same impact initially. But you see my point. I can have a much greater impact on the environement by teaching others to "reduce, reuse, recycle" than I can by completely eliminating my own impact.

If nothing else, that whole argument works as justification for my new tractor, doesn't it?

Sacred Earth

"The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being." Genesis 2:7

Yes, what is more sacred than the earth. The Lord God created it, and by His hands man himself was created from it.

I live on a 40 acre farm. I've lived here only 7 months. Let me start at the beginning, so you understand. I bought 30 acres with the intention of building a house on it. Shortly before we started building (actually, the day before we went to drop $3000 on a set of plans), the neighbors called and said that they were selling their house. They had 37 acres with a house and some barns. We bought 10 acres, including the house and 3 barns in various states of disrepair.

So, I've been with this land for about a year and a half, and living on it for about 7 months. And I love this land.

It struck me that 39 of the 40 acres have a similar monetary value to that one other acre. Heck, one quarter acre holds almost the value of the other 39 3/4 acres. Why? Because 1/4 acre holds a house. A house? Worth more than the land on which it stands? Absurd! Obscene! I can live in a thatched house, but do not take from me my land. You can have my house, my pianos, my stereo, my couches, chairs and tables. But leave me my land. It is the land that is invigorates me. It is the land which sustains me and my family. It is the land which which is sacred.

Killing Chickens

One comes to have a very different outlook on life when one lives on a farm. Of course, that statement in itself belies my bias - the "standard" perspective is not living on a farm. Well, here's what I find - at slaughter time, the animals are just sort of random - you capture whatever 10 chickens you can, and you put them in a cage. The next day, you pull them out in whatever order they happen to come out, and you slaughter them. In one sense, each of those animals is an individual. But in another sense, they are all just chickens. We haven't slaughtered any larger animals yet, and I'm kind of curious to see what that will be like. With a pig or a goat or whatever, if you have only a few, you can't help but know them as individuals. How do you get past the individualism of the animal then?

So as I start to acclimate myself to this life, I wonder how very different are the perspectives of those who grow up this way - the meaning of life and death, the meaning of our existance, all that stuff must come out very differently. As I said to Patti a couple months back, I think that this is much closer to the way God wants man to live. One can't even understand the bible without having an intimate understanding of herding animals, and slaughtering, und so weiter.

Good Morning

It's 2:02am. I'm hungry.