Greetings. My name is Joey. I’m currently in New England. In my 30 years thus far on the planet I’ve experienced a fairly full range of civilization, and I’ve grown more and more disillusioned, particularly in the past few years. Though I’ve been quite “successful” according to our society’s understanding of “success”, I can’t help but feel that it is empty and accompanied by a sense of shame for the amount of unconsciousness required to continually dominate and exterminate all for the building up of one’s false sense of accomplishment and supposed progress.
For years I lived in big cities, and I longed for the ability to see the night sky as it was meant to be seen, as I recalled having seen it when on vacations in the middle of nowhere as a child. That was the start of my conscious awakening to the real world as well as the plastic and isolating nature of civilization. I was never like everyone else anyway, but I was good enough at pretending that I was able to deceive myself. But with this realization that we humans had cut ourselves off from such a primal and basic thing as witnessing the stars was the beginning of the end of that deception. I slowly stopped caring to fit in. I slowly stopped believing anything that I had been taught.
Like many people (though not nearly enough) the constant wars that the United States engages in prompted me to learn more about modern as well as historical imperialism. But I began to see that the roots of imperialism weren’t just about oil or gold. I started to see how imperialism can’t be stopped just by signing treaties or through “free trade” or any of that nonsense. I started to see that imperialism was necessary to prop up my lifestyle. And I started to see clearly that driving hybrids and supporting “fair trade” wouldn’t be enough. I started to see clearly how any manufacturing, and institutionalized division of labor, any mining of “resources”, etc. was inherently unsustainable and would always lead to imperialism. And I started to see the many ways in which the rights of those at home in the imperial nation are severely limited through coercion and violence. I saw that imperialism doesn’t just oppress those in far away lands. It oppresses those at home too. But it most people just don’t know they’re oppressed.
I grew up in the Midwest among cornfields. I thought that was natural as a child. Now, to visit makes me feel depressed. The fields are lined with signs stating that the corn or fertilizer or myriad of chemicals used are provided by some division or another of Syngenta or Dow or Dupont or Monsanto. The air is hazy and brown. There are no trees. The rivers are dammed. The rivers are dirty. This is not the world I want to live in. This is not the world I want to leave to future generations.
I want more than just the stars and an end to imperialism. I want clean water. I want clean air. I want top soil. I want forests. I want majestic rivers to overflow their banks when they need to, without human interference. I want the fish back. I want the wolves back. I want the frogs back. And I want to have a place in it as a participant, not as an outsider. I want to have meaningful relationships with other people based on love and mutual respect and community. I want to have meaningful relationships with trees and herbs and mushrooms and raccoons and deer because we all acknowledge our interdependence.
At first I thought I would just go move to a homestead, grow my own food, etc. My friends and family thought I was extreme when I even implied that I’d consider no electricity. I didn’t bother telling them I wasn’t planning on running water either (other than a stream or brook, perhaps, but you know what I mean.) My research has shown me more and more that agriculture is key to the whole puzzle. I see how imperialism started with agriculture. As a long-time vegetarian this bummed me out. But I now see how much more destruction is brought about through agriculture (particularly grain monocrops) than through factory farms alone (though I still absolutely condemn factory farming as a horrific extension of modern agricultural practices.)
Now a true hunter-gatherer lifestyle appeals more to me than a homesteading lifestyle. This way of life also causes me to confront some moral issues for myself. To begin with, as I mentioned, at this point I’m still vegetarian because I’m not sure how ready I am to face the direct reality of having to kill for food. Though the truth is clear to me that killing is always necessary, whether direct or indirect. Habitats are cleared for agriculture, which kills animals and plants. And to support egg and milk production long-term you’ve got to kill off some of the roosters and the bulls. It’s just the way it goes. This whole issue is one I will need to work through for myself, though I know that logically the hunter-gatherer way of life is the most balanced, honest, and sustainable, and it is the only way of life I know of that truly place humans back in their place as part of the circle of life and death. Anything else still places humans in a role of destroyer as far as I can see. And I see the spiritual dimension of taking one’s place in the circle as being just as important as the sustainability issue.
With that said, at this point I’m willing to make a few compromises initially. In my view the only truly sustainable lifestyle, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, is nomadic by nature. I think it would be difficult to achieve this lifestyle while living in one place for a long time. However, from my experience the nomadic lifestyle is not tolerated in this country where private property is sacrosanct. Therefore, I think a tolerable compromise would be to purchase land and practice horticulture in the most primitive manner along with perhaps keeping some small animals such as chickens. I know this may well seem an insult to post such a thing on a site specifically about rewilding. However, I view this compromise as a transition step. In many ways this transition step keeps true to some of the basic ideas of rewilding since it is a subsistence lifestyle (no long-term food storage) and my preference would be to keep it as primitive as possible, possibly with no permanent buildings. And I envision hand-crafting all tools and shelter and clothing by hand and with hand-gathered materials. Hopefully, in the long term we humans will all return to the sanity of the hunter-gather way of life, and then private property will longer be an issue. Until then, as much as I hate to admit it, I think this transition step compromise is necessary.
At this point I’m feeling actually quite alone and isolated here in New England living with all the modern conveniences doing work that props up capitalism and imperialism and all the rest of civilization. I don’t relate to many people’s ambitions. I’ve been there and done that. I found the ambitions of civilization to deliver empty fruit. I’d really like to meet like-minded good people who are ready to make a go of it.
Thanks for reading.
