From the blog, hardscrabblefarmer.com:
We decided to chuck it just as the 2008 market meltdown was in full swing. We had seen enough signs to know that whatever direction our society was headed, we wanted to get off. Some of the signs were big ones that few people missed; 9/11, Waco, TBTF. Others were more subtle; the PC movement, the tattoo thing, the sudden appearance of huge numbers of morbidly obese people everywhere, an increasing number of people with their heads fixed in abject submission to an electronic device, and an overall decline in civility even in places we had known all our lives. If this was the initial trajectory then we weren’t planning on being anywhere near the re-entry and splashdown. Not that we hadn’t fallen for it ourselves with the constant consumption of resources, the enslavement to granite countertops and cable TV, the ever widening gap between what we thought we wanted and what brought us peace. We tried to mitigate our sense of unease by going to church and doing good deeds for others, but this only highlighted the failure to live up to our own potential in all things. When you do something bad or careless or wasteful or selfish you can’t undo it by being nice to a stranger or roasting a turkey for the folks at the nursing home once a year; it only makes it worse because you know you’re trying to hedge your bet. At some point, if you have any sense of honor and decency you have to make a decision to throw in with the rest of the world and go along for the ride, or strike out on your own path and see if maybe there isn’t a better way.
Looking back over the past six years it’s clear that we didn’t really have the first clue about going off grid. We’d watched a lot of youtube videos, read the core curriculum of the alternative lifestyle school and even developed a few essential skills for our new life, but we still had our heads firmly fixed in a time and place that we were leaving behind. If we had to do it all over again there would have been a lot of things we would have changed and a few we would have done better. I am often asked about what motivated us, how we have adjusted, if it was worth it, but rarely how we did it. This is a short course on the five most important considerations of actually saying goodbye to the popular culture of the US and finding a sanctuary wherever you go.
To continue reading: Hardscrabble Farmer
