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?