the comments at a previous entry [ Eleutheros, The Cause, Not the Occasion , http://milesfrombabylon.blogspot.com/2008/10/cause-not-occasion.html ]: "Question: What advice would you give to someone who has a sincere desire and willingness to leave Babylon?".
do not know. I do not know the circumstances in which you live or what your tastes, do not know what resources you have and do not know your past, etc. You could easily suggest anything properly or start a tirade about the matter at all ambiguous. I must therefore limit the response to describe the most basic rules of conduct of a free man.
The above picture shows a corridor like a cathedral nave created one of the plots of maize for its high at 14 feet [just over 4 feet - editor. transl.] stem. On the left side about half way you can see one flask still sticking up, and several more - inclined. When in season, corn has matured, the stem is getting brown, and the flask slope - in such a way as to set up a shell jacket that allows corn dry in the October sun. Soon we will start a collection, let dosuszyć corn to the end, then we select a flask with shells and we will supply corn for culinary uses.
In fact, last year we have been this much corn, and that sufficed for this. You never know when you happen to barren years, so, starting with the eventuality of his arrival, the majority collected in this year's corn will keep for later. Throughout the year, corn will be ground into flour, which we need to bake the basic ingredient of our diet - corn bread. Another way is to soak the corn in lime water and make her a mass the tortillas and tamales . Natural and the main type of food is, however, in our culture after appalachijsku corn bread, which - along with dried beans, also comes from our crops - it gives a balanced amount of starch, protein and fat.
The plot - this year one of them planted with white corn, and the second - red - pressed in a fairly narrow (which may be 70 feet [about 20 yards - note. Crowd.] Wide) belt located on the slopes of the mountain valley. Nowadays, few had recognized this place as suitable for cultivation. Grain for sowing delayed year after year from each of the collections. Prepared the ground by a plow horse and a hundred years. Soil fertility is maintained using horse manure and compost leaves. In other words, if we closed the gate of our farm [ Farmstead ] of the fence and never worked the trade with Babylon, we can still grow corn and beans - into infinity. Amen.
Many of reading entries on this blog or other texts of a similar nature recoils with horror and disgust at the thought of what they see in the call to isolate in a secluded corner of the world and maintain its vital functions meager bowl of corn mush, all the days of its existence. They are in great error.
What's going on in this using basic computer technology, requiring little of their own, self-reliant economy [ subsistence economy ] - what it means to us? This question is reminiscent of Jack Sparrow, who, abandoned to its fate, together with Elizabeth Swann on a desert island, he told her, What really is Black Pearl - is freedom. As for Jack's ship - so we practiced for centuries, farming choice. A possible choice is the very essence and foundation of our escape from Babylon.
komentatorowi My answer is anonymous, therefore this: To leave Babylon, you have a choice. Unfortunately, very likely that you do not have - even if you are firmly convinced that it is. Babylon, like every system of exploitation and control can only exist through the reduction and elimination of your choice. As not to look - if you can actually make a choice, chances are that you choose what will benefit and development of you and your family, instead, what becomes of Babylon.
Babylon must eliminate the possibility of your choice. It does this by using two effective tricks. First, it offers you the possibility of making an apparent choice to divert your attention from the fact that, in fact you have no choice. Desperate maneuver to a parent who does not podołał his job as parents is the fact that - when a child insists he does not want to go somewhere - Says to him: "We must be ready to go; you want to put a shirt - blue or red?". The parent hopes to select the color of the shirt will cost the child to such an extent that it forgets that do not want to leave. The Nazis used this method to control the Jews, whom they intended to murder, it is no less worthy of condemnation, when he uses it to anyone else. And use the tactics described is an integral part of Babylon.
People always ask us, for example, what kind of alternative energy use, because - they say - if you are going to get out of Babylon, would certainly not want to be connected to the network! The choice between supply of, say, solar energy and the use of the network, is apparent. If "riding out" from oblige to pay a monthly bill for electricity, the need to maintain obarczysz losing its value and decaying system of electricity generation. What's more, if your home system is the only source of power, from what you have, the amount of energy you capable of producing is so small that you need to drastically reduce its consumption. You can not, for example, use the electric stove, electric water heater, electric clothes dryers, electric furnace or heat pump. If you want to live, therefore limiting the amount of energy that you are able to produce by such a system - it will be her first so little that by getting her to connect to the network is not carried by major expenditure for them, or significant loss of independence. Using electricity generated solely from its own This forces the apparent choice. Our house [ homestead ] we arranged in such a way that in no way is dependent on electricity. Do not get me wrong - we are pleased that we have electricity. We like to watch movies on DVD, use the computer, listen to the radio, use the electric dryer for food products, also like the convenience of doing things in the early morning and late evening when the electric light. But we are well prepared for this, to live without electricity. I already did. We have true freedom of choice - the use of electricity or not - in accordance with what the data tells us the circumstances sense. Switching from the network depending on the dependence on manufacturers of batteries and solar panels is not truly free choice, because either way you're not independent.
second way by which Babylon imposes its policy of no freedom of choice is the fact that in a situation where you can really slow way to decide Babylon tries to convince you that in fact did not have that option. To trudnić the crop and in this way to satisfy yourself though some their food needs, need to borrow money to purchase land, right? You walk to college, right? You have four wheels, you have a credit card, right?
not. All these and many other things Babylon repeated ad nauseam - so long that the idea that you could cope without them completely, does not fit you in the head.
therefore invoke the example of my corn field as an illustration of what true freedom of choice. We do ourselves (and even prepare to be done, and cook ground) as the basis of our diet of bread - absolutely no part of Babylon. so we can always choose our bread instead of eating what comes in Babylon. We buy it in bulk quantities sometimes wheat and make bread of it, but if (as happened this year) costs of transport and cause sterility by lift wheat prices to a level that is unacceptable to us, we can look at it and say, " No, do not we go for it, just go back home and eat our corn bread and beans. " Similarly, it will buy food at stalls and shops; and sometimes we eat in the city. But always have freedom of choice and if you want, you can use this liberty for months. We have heard many speakers of the Babylonians: "A man must eat, so in spite of everything, and so we need to raise money to buy food or use a credit card." No choice.
Your Escape from Babylon begins when you can say: "No - I have freedom of choice. I can eat in Babylon, if they so decide, but if the conditions dictated by Babylon [ Terms and Conditions ] will be distasteful to me, I do not have to do that. "
That's the meaning of my corn fields.
This is just an example. You can have different options to choose from. So let's go back to the beginning. What can you do? Consider carefully and honestly to his life and then ask yourself the simple and honest question about where you lack the freedom of choice. Only a credible answer to this question will allow you to make a fair assessment of his position. Is the only choice before which you stand, a distributor of fuel and the next installment for a car or poverty without being able to acquire resources life? Do you need to buy in the supermarket, because otherwise you will die of hunger? Does not the company lending you money to buy a house without an estate agent would have to live under a bridge? Perhaps no university degree and obtained no-one there darzyłby you even a little confidence? Etc. etc. If your answer is "yes", it means that you are deprived of freedom of choice and are in captivity in Babylon. His policy you receive the freedom of choice proved to be extremely effective.
is yet another interesting aspect associated with freedom of choice. Someone may niewprawionemu seem that it is a continuum, the degree of your addiction to Babylon, and therefore a question of balance. But surely it is not. There is a particular moment, a turning point, which is liberated from the suffocating embrace of Babylon.
I remember a few years ago led the conversation, which became the inspiration for entry in this blog. My interlocutor, as many using the argument that "the degree of dependence", argued that both are similarly dependent on the use of Babylon, a coin that ultimately - Like it - I can not avoid it. The difference, which I never understood, based on the fact that the need to use the money Babylon decided on what my interlocutor to do the next morning. He did not have any freedom of choice. next morning he had to refuel the car and go to work - if they act otherwise, on his personal world zawisłaby threat of disaster. I, in turn, could choose whether I will use that day Babylonian money - on a given day or in a given week, or even in any given year. Freed from the rule of Babylon. I could choose I'll go back home and I eat corn bread and beans instead of buying something on the Babylonian marketplace - as well as to decide that, in exchange for a few coins live to Babylon position the ... or that I do not. Well, eventually I'd have to pay real estate taxes and buy some kerosene. But I would go weeks or years to decide how I want to do it. During this time many things are changing, there are many possibilities, and many facts have come and gone. I do not need to do immediately, you can not hurry me, do not you give me a command, you can not make the rules under which I would proceed. It's not continuum, or the question of "degree of dependence" comes to the need to do certain things on cue, the people's conditions and for the benefit of others - or take them when he himself decide on my terms, for my benefit. This is what it means to live in freedom.
So, my anonymous friend, what you have to do is to secure the freedom of choice. Take a look at your situation calmly and indicate in which areas you are herded into a blind alley. Then I see something more than the apparent freedom of choice hinted to you by the Babylon and his mumbling to ensure that you have no freedom of decision, and each time I proceed in such a way that you could say Babylon: "No, not this time, I do not have."
And above all, looking at people's lives really free, do not look at us as if we gnieździli on the gloomy side of a mountain and greedily swallow a bowl of mush miserable. None of these things. When we choose to eat food for our modest, This is incomparable feast. Her part is a delicious, aromatic sauce - which can not match any of the venues offer najwyszukańszych even Babylon. This sauce is freedom of choice.
_______
[Selected comments from the discussion in the text:]
[Eleutheros:]
[...]
About four years ago it seemed that we offered the opportunity to buy twelve acres [ca 5 hectares] of land in our area. Purchase it if it would be a mistake, today, at the beginning of Peak Oil and the Crisis economic, this piece of land "worth" is less than half the sum which was required for him in 2005, roughly at the peak of prosperity in the property market. Buying
then the land would be in addition to the need to take out a loan to pay off some expenses. We hate the very idea of \u200b\u200bindebtedness, and we realized that - if we took this loan - wypruwalibyśmy of himself lived as if it were to participate in some religious crusade, until the debt has not been repaid. That would mean a serious restriction and our already modest expenses, is a full-time employment, expansion of cottage industry, etc.
decided that it's not worth doing. Our decision proved to be good for many reasons.
few years ago in a very similar situation we had to finish the house and introduce ourselves to him. In its construction have never borrowed a penny. We had a house full of very young children, and I - a job that she took almost twenty hours a week (not counting the time to get there). For a little over a year outside the home-building actually did nothing else.
got up, when it was still dark, revealed a wall, covered the day before for protection against frost, and a list in hand, I checked whether I have the necessary building materials and tools. Then I went to work outside the home, climbed back to the shop work, or the composition of the wood, and the rest of the day until late at night I built a house. I lay every stone, I cut each bar, installed every cable, pipe, and even he did the windows and doors ... This house is over 95% of the work of one man.
One night, when some 10 degrees [Fahrenheit] [-12 º Celsius - editor. transl.] came from the roof of the van attached to the desks (2 to 10 feet each) for the construction of the door, but I'm stuck in difficult terrain and could not get out onto the asphalt. So personally I wore two boards some quarter of a mile up the icy ridge to the construction site. Then, after working all morning, collecting materials for an entire afternoon and bring the boards to the top at the expense of over half a dozen trips ... then constructed a door.
Several issues related to our life is not always a light at this point, on the outskirts of Babylon were able to implement similar measures. Just that will set a goal and you start to work.
I would not be able to function in such rozgorączkowaniu for life. That would be a man wykończyło. But long is something I hate that - if I had not fallen in - wypowiedziałbym the unabated war and ran it all means.
Disposing of debt would become my hobby, my profession, my obsession. Dawałbym not leave him alone, gradually eliminating them day and night; release from him I would consider the act as natural as drinking and urinating.
Babylon sings us a lullaby, in which they commit to repay another loan installments is normal and natural order of things, who will accompany us all the days of life. Long ago I awoke from the lethargy in which it sets a lullaby. No more.
[ Dan Trabue :]
Can I quote you and give you a link to the home of your text?
Excellent entry.
[Eleutheros:]
dish!
You can, of course, cite - giving or not giving the source or author. Claim authorship of the text, if it will help someone. This is all the water on my mill.
I do not delude yourself: time is short. My answer was directed at me from various parties questions about the food, which can be stored a long time [ bulk food ], making stocks and withdrawing cash from the economy. No further than yesterday met up with friends who gave us some pallets to be done in the barn floor. They invited me inside, I took a look at their new garnkowi to pressure to milk and was very worried, because the recipe said cooking under pressure 11 pounds per square inch, and the gauge showed the 13th I assured them that all the game, the indicators are not as accurate again and the pressure slightly higher than the recommended does not hurt. These people are likely to succeed. But I was amazed at the general lack of rozgarnięcia, which rendered their questions. This lack of rozgarnięcia is widespread. Time is short and to-do - a lot.
So the most use of everything that you can find here. It's very kind of you, that you ask for permission, I am grateful to you for that, but always remember:
"L'homme c'est rien
L'oeuvre c'est tout. "
[Here Dan Trabue asked about the meaning of the quote.]
[Eleutheros:]
In the story Association rudowłosych [ The Red-Headed League ] Sherlock Holmes quotes a saying of Watson. Unfortunately, Holmes was just as smart as Conan Doyle. Sentence formulated by the French is grammatically incorrect. Instead of "L'homme c'est rien" should be: "L'homme n'est rien."
means:
Man is nothing
work is everything.
[Dan Trabue:]
Elementary.
[ Kevin Carson:]
excellent entry Eleutherosie. Quoted profusely from it in the initial version of the fifteenth chapter of Theory organization [ Organization Theory ], and then commented saying:
And that is a profitable, one does not have a total economic collapse. Described by you guarantee the success of the strategy, even if the monetary economy and the division of labor were still in some form and for an unspecified time still exist (I think it will), and most people still had to meet a significant proportion of their consumption needs by purchasing things for money. I think the situation that we're dealing with after the cyclic periods of stagnation associated with Peak Oil and other phenomena that characterize the state of capitalism will lead to its eventual collapse, it will resemble rather what Warren Johnson described in his book On the way to Savings [ Muddling Toward frugality ], and Brian Keller Return to Mayberry [Return to Mayberry ], than the reality presented in the world handmade [ World Made by Hand ] Jim Kunstler. The point is that awareness that you have no debts, you are the owner of the place where you live, and not weighed down with no obligation, and that it had forced you into this situation, you are able to secure a permanent roof over their head and food on the table without employing on-time, has an invaluable impact on your bargaining power in negotiations with employers here and now, even if capitalism will continue to be kept alive. As nearly eighty years ago Ralph Borsodi noted, the fact that he had the opportunity to "retreat" on his farm to prolonged periods of time - and an awareness of his potential employers that you are able to do so - allow him to negotiate much better terms that work for someone else's order, he agreed to take .
[Eleutheros:]
Kevin, you've got almost the essence of what I write. Reasonable from an economic point of view of cost-effective way of life based on production for their own needs [ direct-use Living ] is a good idea, even in good times economically - "good" according to the definition of Babylon. The point is simply that - while other ways of life, those dependent on borrowing / loan / cheap oil disappear in the blink of an eye, soon will come the hard times - periods of economic difficulties do not actually have any impact on the self-sufficient way of life.
will always lead to an exchange of money, as has happened over the past 5000 years and have not changed that much any more, even the greatest difficulties, or violent displacement. But the complete dependence on the money puts people in a very difficult situation.
Kunstler is not as it seems to me to telling predictions about the likely or realistic shape of the future. His book is more like a kabuki makeup on the actor's intent is to use Kunstler exaggerations to make sure that the reader without any trouble understanding the meaning of the song. The scenario of events is predictable, as is often the case in the literature: a population decimated by the epidemic, a sudden interruption in oil imports, the main crops destroyed by pestilence. And all This happens in less than two decades.
unlikely.
Kunstlerowi But it allows a quite clear way to explain their most important concepts. The most significant of them seemed to me, is that a young friend of the hero longs for the old times, although they do not know from personal experience, as he was born after the collapse of [the collapse ]. Kunstler thought the book, at least as I understand it, is that we love more in the idea of \u200b\u200bBabylon than its reality.
Every morning I drink tea, which must be imported and for which you have to pay money. People traded tea for centuries and will continue to do so. But here in Appalachia, where we have perfect conditions for growing apples, and this year the harvest is great, I can see in the grocery store apples imported from Israel and South Africa. It's almost like we made a great effort just to unurzać everything in oil and debt. I see the jars of preserved vegetables - vegetables that grow well with us - imported from India. In the name but the little common sense - where is the point in importing food from India?
And yet, if you look at the sober eye Abuse Our money belongs to the same category as the consumption of food in India.
[ Teri :]
Let me warn against something here. For two years we lived in the woods on our two and a half acres [ca ha] not connected to the mains. We had goats, chickens, geese and rabbits, even assumed, and gardened. I work full time, and everything worked with my husband. This month with pneumonia and died. I am 57 years old and do not know if I can manage to lead the same household. I had to give a few animals and move into the winter having electricity to the house - until you find time for it to somehow sort out everything. It is much easier to do, being at a younger age. I hope I can find some way to the farm has remained in my hands.
[Eleutheros:]
Teri!
I read your blogs, trying to better understand the position where you are, but I came across a description of your situation. Relying so only on what you wrote in that commentary, I have to ask: Why
what you write, you call it a warning?
If everything worked thanks to your husband who is suddenly missing, or should not have expected that his death will bring a radical change?
This spring, when one of my daughters exaggerate cabbage seedlings from the greenhouse to the field (the project resulted in a mad success, we are still in the fridge cabbage with this collection), she asked: "How radziłbyś a large garden with so if you had not had so many children? ". I answered her, of course: "If I did not have many children, I would not have such a large garden. "
If one of us (my wife or I) have died or suffered serious injury, changes are made. Life would look different. But many talked about it and we have plans and measures in case this happened.
People build their lives in Babylon, based on two (or more) sources of income, and yet no one sees the danger of sudden loss of a spouse, meaning the loss of this source (or a number of sources) of income. Aware that this may happen, it should accompanied by a man independently of lifestyle marketing, which is practiced.
[Teri:]
The point is that modern conveniences make it much easier running the farm. I know that you are not disconnected from the mains, but the greatest enthusiasts of returning to the countryside will be disconnected from it. When my husband was in ICU, I had to find someone who would take our thirteen goats (and, luckily, I managed to). Just do not take into account to cope with such situations, when he begins to think about returning to the country.
[Eleutheros:]
Teri, not what I would agree that the greatest enthusiasts of returning to the village are those not connected to the mains. They returned to the village only if.
We are connected to the mains, but we have everything you need to do completely without power, if necessary, or if we were so minded - and often we have. Turn off all the time, we use kerosene lamps (by the very short time when we need artificial light during the day), read and play on acoustic instruments instead of giving up the electronic entertainment. We do not use electricity for anything other than light, electronic gadgets and freezers. No clothes dryer, electric stove, heat pump or electric furnace, vacuum cleaners instead of brooms, etc. So the connection and / or electricity to the grid niepodłączenie anyway is not a particularly important point.
however you would-be independent farmers [ would be homesteaders ] are obsessed with the cut-off from the network and tinkering with all sorts of devices such as "inventions" Rube'a Goldberg [2], to stock up on something that the network could provide them for a penny, and without which, if necessary, could be dispensed with.
anyone who tries to lead self-sufficient life, advocate, not to let himself be fooled by the manic life cut off from the mains.
You write: "I just do not take into account to cope with such situations when he starts to think about returning to the countryside."
We think about it. You wrote that you have a little over two acres of land and thirteen goats? It is far too a lot! This operation of a farm on the way agrobiznesowy, delivered him from making the outside of the feed and - consequently - the reliance on someone from the outside, who feeds your goat, if you do not have.
You are quite the opposite. We now have two goats on thirteen acres and just write, what was at stake: if they both would have to leave for a month or two, goats perfectly able to cope alone. No one would have to deal with them one bit.
Indeed this thought.
[ Stephanie:]
RETY, I just discovered your blog - Is amazing! Also living in the southern part of West Virginia [...]
Our exit from Babylon began in 2002 ... We got rid of debts, and then moved to the suburban housing estates in the middle of Maryland requires an overhaul, but suitable for home residence situated in the southern part of West Virginia on ¼ acre [approximately 1000 sq m], which cost us $ 5,000 in cash, and even recently bought for cash (NO CREDIT!) Land on which the house stands, and we are working on going to the next stage, writhing nest and family In order to ensure the self-sufficiency. In our quarter of an acre we have chickens and a large garden ... at this stage we make every effort to best prepare for life without electricity and supermarket ... but I agree - it's all about freedom of choice! My husband has no "real" job, with a salary and boss, working from home and he is the boss, and the few bills that actually have to pay, I always manage to resolve ... But - unlike other - my husband has freedom of choice and the best part is that you can choose that will be at home with me and the children - and will, as it should, a father involved in the family ... today for most children is a rarity ...
Anyway: I love your blog ... I'll be back [...]
[ MojoMan :]
I had a great New England ice storm, and about one million people have the prospect of several days without electricity. Media reports focused, as usual, that helpless people have no electricity. Without heating, no lights, my God! - No TV! (Personally, I most worry about frozen and broken pipes). Most choose to somehow survive and calling your insurance company. (If you still manage to find a working phone without electricity.) A more determined to scour glowing empty shelves of DIY stores in search of generators. I never hear anyone talking about: "This helplessness and dependency is stupid. The device in my house so I could live peacefully and without electricity, when I wanted / needed. " The way in which current approaches to such matters, has always struck me as frightening and dangerous.
solutions in case of lack of light and heat are relatively obvious, but what you do / would you do with kept refrigerated / frozen food, when / if a few days you will be deprived of his power?
_______
TRANSLATOR ENDNOTES [1] Eleutheros (gr. ἐλεύθερος) - a free man.
[2] Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) - American engineer, inventor and artist. Known as the author of the drawings of devices designed in order to perform simple tasks in a very complicated way.
_______
Translation by:
Eleutheros, Choice, the Best Sauce , http://milesfrombabylon.blogspot.com/2008/10/choice-best-sauce.html
Choice, the Best Sauce published on the blog Eleutherosa How Many Miles from Babylon 15 October 2008
do not know. I do not know the circumstances in which you live or what your tastes, do not know what resources you have and do not know your past, etc. You could easily suggest anything properly or start a tirade about the matter at all ambiguous. I must therefore limit the response to describe the most basic rules of conduct of a free man.
The above picture shows a corridor like a cathedral nave created one of the plots of maize for its high at 14 feet [just over 4 feet - editor. transl.] stem. On the left side about half way you can see one flask still sticking up, and several more - inclined. When in season, corn has matured, the stem is getting brown, and the flask slope - in such a way as to set up a shell jacket that allows corn dry in the October sun. Soon we will start a collection, let dosuszyć corn to the end, then we select a flask with shells and we will supply corn for culinary uses.
In fact, last year we have been this much corn, and that sufficed for this. You never know when you happen to barren years, so, starting with the eventuality of his arrival, the majority collected in this year's corn will keep for later. Throughout the year, corn will be ground into flour, which we need to bake the basic ingredient of our diet - corn bread. Another way is to soak the corn in lime water and make her a mass the tortillas and tamales . Natural and the main type of food is, however, in our culture after appalachijsku corn bread, which - along with dried beans, also comes from our crops - it gives a balanced amount of starch, protein and fat.
The plot - this year one of them planted with white corn, and the second - red - pressed in a fairly narrow (which may be 70 feet [about 20 yards - note. Crowd.] Wide) belt located on the slopes of the mountain valley. Nowadays, few had recognized this place as suitable for cultivation. Grain for sowing delayed year after year from each of the collections. Prepared the ground by a plow horse and a hundred years. Soil fertility is maintained using horse manure and compost leaves. In other words, if we closed the gate of our farm [ Farmstead ] of the fence and never worked the trade with Babylon, we can still grow corn and beans - into infinity. Amen.
Many of reading entries on this blog or other texts of a similar nature recoils with horror and disgust at the thought of what they see in the call to isolate in a secluded corner of the world and maintain its vital functions meager bowl of corn mush, all the days of its existence. They are in great error.
What's going on in this using basic computer technology, requiring little of their own, self-reliant economy [ subsistence economy ] - what it means to us? This question is reminiscent of Jack Sparrow, who, abandoned to its fate, together with Elizabeth Swann on a desert island, he told her, What really is Black Pearl - is freedom. As for Jack's ship - so we practiced for centuries, farming choice. A possible choice is the very essence and foundation of our escape from Babylon.
komentatorowi My answer is anonymous, therefore this: To leave Babylon, you have a choice. Unfortunately, very likely that you do not have - even if you are firmly convinced that it is. Babylon, like every system of exploitation and control can only exist through the reduction and elimination of your choice. As not to look - if you can actually make a choice, chances are that you choose what will benefit and development of you and your family, instead, what becomes of Babylon.
Babylon must eliminate the possibility of your choice. It does this by using two effective tricks. First, it offers you the possibility of making an apparent choice to divert your attention from the fact that, in fact you have no choice. Desperate maneuver to a parent who does not podołał his job as parents is the fact that - when a child insists he does not want to go somewhere - Says to him: "We must be ready to go; you want to put a shirt - blue or red?". The parent hopes to select the color of the shirt will cost the child to such an extent that it forgets that do not want to leave. The Nazis used this method to control the Jews, whom they intended to murder, it is no less worthy of condemnation, when he uses it to anyone else. And use the tactics described is an integral part of Babylon.
People always ask us, for example, what kind of alternative energy use, because - they say - if you are going to get out of Babylon, would certainly not want to be connected to the network! The choice between supply of, say, solar energy and the use of the network, is apparent. If "riding out" from oblige to pay a monthly bill for electricity, the need to maintain obarczysz losing its value and decaying system of electricity generation. What's more, if your home system is the only source of power, from what you have, the amount of energy you capable of producing is so small that you need to drastically reduce its consumption. You can not, for example, use the electric stove, electric water heater, electric clothes dryers, electric furnace or heat pump. If you want to live, therefore limiting the amount of energy that you are able to produce by such a system - it will be her first so little that by getting her to connect to the network is not carried by major expenditure for them, or significant loss of independence. Using electricity generated solely from its own This forces the apparent choice. Our house [ homestead ] we arranged in such a way that in no way is dependent on electricity. Do not get me wrong - we are pleased that we have electricity. We like to watch movies on DVD, use the computer, listen to the radio, use the electric dryer for food products, also like the convenience of doing things in the early morning and late evening when the electric light. But we are well prepared for this, to live without electricity. I already did. We have true freedom of choice - the use of electricity or not - in accordance with what the data tells us the circumstances sense. Switching from the network depending on the dependence on manufacturers of batteries and solar panels is not truly free choice, because either way you're not independent.
second way by which Babylon imposes its policy of no freedom of choice is the fact that in a situation where you can really slow way to decide Babylon tries to convince you that in fact did not have that option. To trudnić the crop and in this way to satisfy yourself though some their food needs, need to borrow money to purchase land, right? You walk to college, right? You have four wheels, you have a credit card, right?
not. All these and many other things Babylon repeated ad nauseam - so long that the idea that you could cope without them completely, does not fit you in the head.
therefore invoke the example of my corn field as an illustration of what true freedom of choice. We do ourselves (and even prepare to be done, and cook ground) as the basis of our diet of bread - absolutely no part of Babylon. so we can always choose our bread instead of eating what comes in Babylon. We buy it in bulk quantities sometimes wheat and make bread of it, but if (as happened this year) costs of transport and cause sterility by lift wheat prices to a level that is unacceptable to us, we can look at it and say, " No, do not we go for it, just go back home and eat our corn bread and beans. " Similarly, it will buy food at stalls and shops; and sometimes we eat in the city. But always have freedom of choice and if you want, you can use this liberty for months. We have heard many speakers of the Babylonians: "A man must eat, so in spite of everything, and so we need to raise money to buy food or use a credit card." No choice.
Your Escape from Babylon begins when you can say: "No - I have freedom of choice. I can eat in Babylon, if they so decide, but if the conditions dictated by Babylon [ Terms and Conditions ] will be distasteful to me, I do not have to do that. "
That's the meaning of my corn fields.
This is just an example. You can have different options to choose from. So let's go back to the beginning. What can you do? Consider carefully and honestly to his life and then ask yourself the simple and honest question about where you lack the freedom of choice. Only a credible answer to this question will allow you to make a fair assessment of his position. Is the only choice before which you stand, a distributor of fuel and the next installment for a car or poverty without being able to acquire resources life? Do you need to buy in the supermarket, because otherwise you will die of hunger? Does not the company lending you money to buy a house without an estate agent would have to live under a bridge? Perhaps no university degree and obtained no-one there darzyłby you even a little confidence? Etc. etc. If your answer is "yes", it means that you are deprived of freedom of choice and are in captivity in Babylon. His policy you receive the freedom of choice proved to be extremely effective.
is yet another interesting aspect associated with freedom of choice. Someone may niewprawionemu seem that it is a continuum, the degree of your addiction to Babylon, and therefore a question of balance. But surely it is not. There is a particular moment, a turning point, which is liberated from the suffocating embrace of Babylon.
I remember a few years ago led the conversation, which became the inspiration for entry in this blog. My interlocutor, as many using the argument that "the degree of dependence", argued that both are similarly dependent on the use of Babylon, a coin that ultimately - Like it - I can not avoid it. The difference, which I never understood, based on the fact that the need to use the money Babylon decided on what my interlocutor to do the next morning. He did not have any freedom of choice. next morning he had to refuel the car and go to work - if they act otherwise, on his personal world zawisłaby threat of disaster. I, in turn, could choose whether I will use that day Babylonian money - on a given day or in a given week, or even in any given year. Freed from the rule of Babylon. I could choose I'll go back home and I eat corn bread and beans instead of buying something on the Babylonian marketplace - as well as to decide that, in exchange for a few coins live to Babylon position the ... or that I do not. Well, eventually I'd have to pay real estate taxes and buy some kerosene. But I would go weeks or years to decide how I want to do it. During this time many things are changing, there are many possibilities, and many facts have come and gone. I do not need to do immediately, you can not hurry me, do not you give me a command, you can not make the rules under which I would proceed. It's not continuum, or the question of "degree of dependence" comes to the need to do certain things on cue, the people's conditions and for the benefit of others - or take them when he himself decide on my terms, for my benefit. This is what it means to live in freedom.
So, my anonymous friend, what you have to do is to secure the freedom of choice. Take a look at your situation calmly and indicate in which areas you are herded into a blind alley. Then I see something more than the apparent freedom of choice hinted to you by the Babylon and his mumbling to ensure that you have no freedom of decision, and each time I proceed in such a way that you could say Babylon: "No, not this time, I do not have."
And above all, looking at people's lives really free, do not look at us as if we gnieździli on the gloomy side of a mountain and greedily swallow a bowl of mush miserable. None of these things. When we choose to eat food for our modest, This is incomparable feast. Her part is a delicious, aromatic sauce - which can not match any of the venues offer najwyszukańszych even Babylon. This sauce is freedom of choice.
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[Selected comments from the discussion in the text:]
[Eleutheros:]
[...]
About four years ago it seemed that we offered the opportunity to buy twelve acres [ca 5 hectares] of land in our area. Purchase it if it would be a mistake, today, at the beginning of Peak Oil and the Crisis economic, this piece of land "worth" is less than half the sum which was required for him in 2005, roughly at the peak of prosperity in the property market. Buying
then the land would be in addition to the need to take out a loan to pay off some expenses. We hate the very idea of \u200b\u200bindebtedness, and we realized that - if we took this loan - wypruwalibyśmy of himself lived as if it were to participate in some religious crusade, until the debt has not been repaid. That would mean a serious restriction and our already modest expenses, is a full-time employment, expansion of cottage industry, etc.
decided that it's not worth doing. Our decision proved to be good for many reasons.
few years ago in a very similar situation we had to finish the house and introduce ourselves to him. In its construction have never borrowed a penny. We had a house full of very young children, and I - a job that she took almost twenty hours a week (not counting the time to get there). For a little over a year outside the home-building actually did nothing else.
got up, when it was still dark, revealed a wall, covered the day before for protection against frost, and a list in hand, I checked whether I have the necessary building materials and tools. Then I went to work outside the home, climbed back to the shop work, or the composition of the wood, and the rest of the day until late at night I built a house. I lay every stone, I cut each bar, installed every cable, pipe, and even he did the windows and doors ... This house is over 95% of the work of one man.
One night, when some 10 degrees [Fahrenheit] [-12 º Celsius - editor. transl.] came from the roof of the van attached to the desks (2 to 10 feet each) for the construction of the door, but I'm stuck in difficult terrain and could not get out onto the asphalt. So personally I wore two boards some quarter of a mile up the icy ridge to the construction site. Then, after working all morning, collecting materials for an entire afternoon and bring the boards to the top at the expense of over half a dozen trips ... then constructed a door.
Several issues related to our life is not always a light at this point, on the outskirts of Babylon were able to implement similar measures. Just that will set a goal and you start to work.
I would not be able to function in such rozgorączkowaniu for life. That would be a man wykończyło. But long is something I hate that - if I had not fallen in - wypowiedziałbym the unabated war and ran it all means.
Disposing of debt would become my hobby, my profession, my obsession. Dawałbym not leave him alone, gradually eliminating them day and night; release from him I would consider the act as natural as drinking and urinating.
Babylon sings us a lullaby, in which they commit to repay another loan installments is normal and natural order of things, who will accompany us all the days of life. Long ago I awoke from the lethargy in which it sets a lullaby. No more.
[ Dan Trabue :]
Can I quote you and give you a link to the home of your text?
Excellent entry.
[Eleutheros:]
dish!
You can, of course, cite - giving or not giving the source or author. Claim authorship of the text, if it will help someone. This is all the water on my mill.
I do not delude yourself: time is short. My answer was directed at me from various parties questions about the food, which can be stored a long time [ bulk food ], making stocks and withdrawing cash from the economy. No further than yesterday met up with friends who gave us some pallets to be done in the barn floor. They invited me inside, I took a look at their new garnkowi to pressure to milk and was very worried, because the recipe said cooking under pressure 11 pounds per square inch, and the gauge showed the 13th I assured them that all the game, the indicators are not as accurate again and the pressure slightly higher than the recommended does not hurt. These people are likely to succeed. But I was amazed at the general lack of rozgarnięcia, which rendered their questions. This lack of rozgarnięcia is widespread. Time is short and to-do - a lot.
So the most use of everything that you can find here. It's very kind of you, that you ask for permission, I am grateful to you for that, but always remember:
"L'homme c'est rien
L'oeuvre c'est tout. "
[Here Dan Trabue asked about the meaning of the quote.]
[Eleutheros:]
In the story Association rudowłosych [ The Red-Headed League ] Sherlock Holmes quotes a saying of Watson. Unfortunately, Holmes was just as smart as Conan Doyle. Sentence formulated by the French is grammatically incorrect. Instead of "L'homme c'est rien" should be: "L'homme n'est rien."
means:
Man is nothing
work is everything.
[Dan Trabue:]
Elementary.
[ Kevin Carson:]
excellent entry Eleutherosie. Quoted profusely from it in the initial version of the fifteenth chapter of Theory organization [ Organization Theory ], and then commented saying:
And that is a profitable, one does not have a total economic collapse. Described by you guarantee the success of the strategy, even if the monetary economy and the division of labor were still in some form and for an unspecified time still exist (I think it will), and most people still had to meet a significant proportion of their consumption needs by purchasing things for money. I think the situation that we're dealing with after the cyclic periods of stagnation associated with Peak Oil and other phenomena that characterize the state of capitalism will lead to its eventual collapse, it will resemble rather what Warren Johnson described in his book On the way to Savings [ Muddling Toward frugality ], and Brian Keller Return to Mayberry [Return to Mayberry ], than the reality presented in the world handmade [ World Made by Hand ] Jim Kunstler. The point is that awareness that you have no debts, you are the owner of the place where you live, and not weighed down with no obligation, and that it had forced you into this situation, you are able to secure a permanent roof over their head and food on the table without employing on-time, has an invaluable impact on your bargaining power in negotiations with employers here and now, even if capitalism will continue to be kept alive. As nearly eighty years ago Ralph Borsodi noted, the fact that he had the opportunity to "retreat" on his farm to prolonged periods of time - and an awareness of his potential employers that you are able to do so - allow him to negotiate much better terms that work for someone else's order, he agreed to take .
[Eleutheros:]
Kevin, you've got almost the essence of what I write. Reasonable from an economic point of view of cost-effective way of life based on production for their own needs [ direct-use Living ] is a good idea, even in good times economically - "good" according to the definition of Babylon. The point is simply that - while other ways of life, those dependent on borrowing / loan / cheap oil disappear in the blink of an eye, soon will come the hard times - periods of economic difficulties do not actually have any impact on the self-sufficient way of life.
will always lead to an exchange of money, as has happened over the past 5000 years and have not changed that much any more, even the greatest difficulties, or violent displacement. But the complete dependence on the money puts people in a very difficult situation.
Kunstler is not as it seems to me to telling predictions about the likely or realistic shape of the future. His book is more like a kabuki makeup on the actor's intent is to use Kunstler exaggerations to make sure that the reader without any trouble understanding the meaning of the song. The scenario of events is predictable, as is often the case in the literature: a population decimated by the epidemic, a sudden interruption in oil imports, the main crops destroyed by pestilence. And all This happens in less than two decades.
unlikely.
Kunstlerowi But it allows a quite clear way to explain their most important concepts. The most significant of them seemed to me, is that a young friend of the hero longs for the old times, although they do not know from personal experience, as he was born after the collapse of [the collapse ]. Kunstler thought the book, at least as I understand it, is that we love more in the idea of \u200b\u200bBabylon than its reality.
Every morning I drink tea, which must be imported and for which you have to pay money. People traded tea for centuries and will continue to do so. But here in Appalachia, where we have perfect conditions for growing apples, and this year the harvest is great, I can see in the grocery store apples imported from Israel and South Africa. It's almost like we made a great effort just to unurzać everything in oil and debt. I see the jars of preserved vegetables - vegetables that grow well with us - imported from India. In the name but the little common sense - where is the point in importing food from India?
And yet, if you look at the sober eye Abuse Our money belongs to the same category as the consumption of food in India.
[ Teri :]
Let me warn against something here. For two years we lived in the woods on our two and a half acres [ca ha] not connected to the mains. We had goats, chickens, geese and rabbits, even assumed, and gardened. I work full time, and everything worked with my husband. This month with pneumonia and died. I am 57 years old and do not know if I can manage to lead the same household. I had to give a few animals and move into the winter having electricity to the house - until you find time for it to somehow sort out everything. It is much easier to do, being at a younger age. I hope I can find some way to the farm has remained in my hands.
[Eleutheros:]
Teri!
I read your blogs, trying to better understand the position where you are, but I came across a description of your situation. Relying so only on what you wrote in that commentary, I have to ask: Why
what you write, you call it a warning?
If everything worked thanks to your husband who is suddenly missing, or should not have expected that his death will bring a radical change?
This spring, when one of my daughters exaggerate cabbage seedlings from the greenhouse to the field (the project resulted in a mad success, we are still in the fridge cabbage with this collection), she asked: "How radziłbyś a large garden with so if you had not had so many children? ". I answered her, of course: "If I did not have many children, I would not have such a large garden. "
If one of us (my wife or I) have died or suffered serious injury, changes are made. Life would look different. But many talked about it and we have plans and measures in case this happened.
People build their lives in Babylon, based on two (or more) sources of income, and yet no one sees the danger of sudden loss of a spouse, meaning the loss of this source (or a number of sources) of income. Aware that this may happen, it should accompanied by a man independently of lifestyle marketing, which is practiced.
[Teri:]
The point is that modern conveniences make it much easier running the farm. I know that you are not disconnected from the mains, but the greatest enthusiasts of returning to the countryside will be disconnected from it. When my husband was in ICU, I had to find someone who would take our thirteen goats (and, luckily, I managed to). Just do not take into account to cope with such situations, when he begins to think about returning to the country.
[Eleutheros:]
Teri, not what I would agree that the greatest enthusiasts of returning to the village are those not connected to the mains. They returned to the village only if.
We are connected to the mains, but we have everything you need to do completely without power, if necessary, or if we were so minded - and often we have. Turn off all the time, we use kerosene lamps (by the very short time when we need artificial light during the day), read and play on acoustic instruments instead of giving up the electronic entertainment. We do not use electricity for anything other than light, electronic gadgets and freezers. No clothes dryer, electric stove, heat pump or electric furnace, vacuum cleaners instead of brooms, etc. So the connection and / or electricity to the grid niepodłączenie anyway is not a particularly important point.
however you would-be independent farmers [ would be homesteaders ] are obsessed with the cut-off from the network and tinkering with all sorts of devices such as "inventions" Rube'a Goldberg [2], to stock up on something that the network could provide them for a penny, and without which, if necessary, could be dispensed with.
anyone who tries to lead self-sufficient life, advocate, not to let himself be fooled by the manic life cut off from the mains.
You write: "I just do not take into account to cope with such situations when he starts to think about returning to the countryside."
We think about it. You wrote that you have a little over two acres of land and thirteen goats? It is far too a lot! This operation of a farm on the way agrobiznesowy, delivered him from making the outside of the feed and - consequently - the reliance on someone from the outside, who feeds your goat, if you do not have.
You are quite the opposite. We now have two goats on thirteen acres and just write, what was at stake: if they both would have to leave for a month or two, goats perfectly able to cope alone. No one would have to deal with them one bit.
Indeed this thought.
[ Stephanie:]
RETY, I just discovered your blog - Is amazing! Also living in the southern part of West Virginia [...]
Our exit from Babylon began in 2002 ... We got rid of debts, and then moved to the suburban housing estates in the middle of Maryland requires an overhaul, but suitable for home residence situated in the southern part of West Virginia on ¼ acre [approximately 1000 sq m], which cost us $ 5,000 in cash, and even recently bought for cash (NO CREDIT!) Land on which the house stands, and we are working on going to the next stage, writhing nest and family In order to ensure the self-sufficiency. In our quarter of an acre we have chickens and a large garden ... at this stage we make every effort to best prepare for life without electricity and supermarket ... but I agree - it's all about freedom of choice! My husband has no "real" job, with a salary and boss, working from home and he is the boss, and the few bills that actually have to pay, I always manage to resolve ... But - unlike other - my husband has freedom of choice and the best part is that you can choose that will be at home with me and the children - and will, as it should, a father involved in the family ... today for most children is a rarity ...
Anyway: I love your blog ... I'll be back [...]
[ MojoMan :]
I had a great New England ice storm, and about one million people have the prospect of several days without electricity. Media reports focused, as usual, that helpless people have no electricity. Without heating, no lights, my God! - No TV! (Personally, I most worry about frozen and broken pipes). Most choose to somehow survive and calling your insurance company. (If you still manage to find a working phone without electricity.) A more determined to scour glowing empty shelves of DIY stores in search of generators. I never hear anyone talking about: "This helplessness and dependency is stupid. The device in my house so I could live peacefully and without electricity, when I wanted / needed. " The way in which current approaches to such matters, has always struck me as frightening and dangerous.
solutions in case of lack of light and heat are relatively obvious, but what you do / would you do with kept refrigerated / frozen food, when / if a few days you will be deprived of his power?
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TRANSLATOR ENDNOTES [1] Eleutheros (gr. ἐλεύθερος) - a free man.
[2] Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) - American engineer, inventor and artist. Known as the author of the drawings of devices designed in order to perform simple tasks in a very complicated way.
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Translation by:
Eleutheros, Choice, the Best Sauce , http://milesfrombabylon.blogspot.com/2008/10/choice-best-sauce.html
Choice, the Best Sauce published on the blog Eleutherosa How Many Miles from Babylon 15 October 2008
