let's move to the country

OK, so I’m not ready to go live in a yurt. The attraction is obvious, though, and the desire to chuck it all and return to nature, in various guises, has been a constant companion to the development of industrial society. Perhaps it is the age in which we live, or the stage at which I currently find myself, but a shift toward simplicity seems palpable, no matter how ill defined or short-lived it may be. A malfunctioning system invites questioning, of course, and plenty of people these days have no choice but to operate outside the conventional parameters of success. Part of me really wants to believe, earnestly and wholeheartedly, that the system can still work, despite the recession, despite ecological degradation, despite the acrimony that stalls dialogue. And part of me wants to go bake bread and raise chickens on a farm somewhere.

For me, what provokes envy is the sense of clarity that seems to guide this kind of decision-making. The thought that one could be so deliberate in assessing needs as to pare down both belongings and activities to the most essential is a seductive one. It is also, at least in my imagining, a tad absolutist; it isn’t place alone that effects transformation, after all. As Henry Miller points out in Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch, even paradise is unlivable when a person hasn’t figured out how to live with herself.