This past weekend, Hubby and I were in line at the deli of an upscale gourmet food market in the city where we live. I was tired and not feeling well, my feet were screaming, I wanted to go home, and our order was taking forever.
While standing there, I began to look around me at all the expensive food items, for the first time seeing the complete picture of city life, brought into crystal-clear focus at this little market.
The meat we were in line for…we could have hunted that. The beautiful selection of mushrooms…we could have grown those, or gathered them. The cilantro in our basket…it could have come from our garden. The pricey sushi-grade fish we purchased…we could have caught that ourselves.
And so it is with cities. They’re artificial. Some folks thrive on the city lifestyle — and more power to ’em!
Here in the city… We wake before we’re rested. Trudge to work day after day after day. So that we may sit in a tiny cubicle and stare at a computer. Wasting our precious life force on things we care nothing about. We come home stressed and exhausted. All to make money. Money, so that we can afford to live in the city so that we can be close to the jobs we need in order to make money. Money, so that we can afford to buy the food we aren’t growing ourselves because we’re too busy working, and because we live in the city and have no land.
See what a circle it is?
It’s self-sustaining. Vicious, indeed!
And so how do you get off the merry-go-round if you were born into it? If your family no longer owns land?
The cruel answer is…with money!
You hunker down, trudge to the job, and live below your means. Get a cheaper apartment. Get rid of your car. Visit the library instead of the bookstore. Eat out less. Kick the Starbucks habit.
All the while, stuffing as much money into your savings account as you can. And then, decide when you’ve saved up enough. Don’t keep saving and saving till you’re dead! When you’ve reached “enough,” quit your job and buy some land — with cash; no debts, no banks. Someplace where you can hunt and fish and garden and forage. Live in a temporary shelter and build a house if there isn’t one there already. With your neighbors, trade the goods and services that you have for the goods and services that you need. Follow your passions…create things…and chances are, you’ll earn the little money you need from those soulful pursuits alone.
And you’re free! You’ve broken the cycle that dates back to the Industrial Revolution, when our ancestors left the land and came to the city.
And you’ve created a new self-sustaining circle that’s healthier, happier, freer…lighter.
You were the maverick! You broke away! So pass that land onto your children; tell them not to sell it, but to pass it down to their children, and on down the generations. Show them by example how being self-sufficient on their own land is the key to their freedom!
