Changing one’s lifestyle can be a daunting task if you are inexperienced at about to what you are changing. Fortunately for me, the change is less severe because I was raised that way. Still, there is much you must confront because the task is formidable regardless. After the Covid Hoax, many became enlightened and pursued this path. I completely understand the person who thinks about it making such drastic changes, but then decides, crap, I cannot do that, especially at my age. However, there are many who are opting to make their own owned space, and they are, mostly, younger—Millenial or older gen Zers—who are confronted with…kids. There are a few GenX in this mix, but they are still fewer.
All this has been a long time coming for our society.
The “greening” of America began under JFK, which led to the corporatization of the food supply (the obliteration of the small local farmers), and then, the eradication of leaded gas, and real muscle vehicles. Emissions ran the show and our vehicles began to…suck, our food also became more processed.1 We got fatter, and healthy lifestyles were replaced by the food pyramid. It is rather apropos that RFK Jr. really is seeking to undo much of his assault on our food supply that began under his uncle and father.
Remember when things were “simpler?” We had more owned space, but we were completely unaware of what was happening right in front of us:
Yet, manly spirit was still alive:
Children need that influence in their lives; the modern world cannot provide anything that made the USA the great power it became—the new class of tech bro will never understand. Why? Because tech bros like Elon and Vivek really live in their own self-made matrix. Tech bros of the 1900s built shit; tech bros of the 21st century create a matrix. It’s fake. If only they understood how fake it is.
What to do?
The rejection of the modern world as it now exists is not enough.
We need a more robust motivation, I would add. There must be more than children as a motivation to uproot and reclaim owned space. Owned space is what every single person must seek. I note some of that in this video below:👇
But also in this video:👇
Joel Salatin covered some of this in his 2024 book:
Salatin is really a positive force, and he has influenced people like RFK jr…MAHA baby! Salatin is a relative hero in homesteading circles because he was among the first to publicly defend small farmers and liberty loving people who refuse to live in 15 minute “green” new deal cities. You should watch RFK’s interview with him:
That moving out of the city is good for kids, is not really debatable, and on that point, I totally agreed with Scott. But what about the rest of us? There should be a motivation for oneself that goes beyond kids. That is, kids grow and up and move away, and in the natural progression of things, start their own families.
I would say it is according to nature to live a more self sufficient life for all of us no matter the age. It is not just good for kids, it is good for adults throughout all life, even when the kids are grown and gone.
Chapter 1: Get in the Game
“The true recipe for freedom requires you to roll up your sleeves, engage, and participate in life’s most basic and mundane tasks. Washing the dirty clothes. Cleaning the toilet. Butchering chickens. Churning butter. Cutting firewood. Picking apples. Canning applesauce. Yes, those homestead skills from my bygone era that created self-reliance and resiliency, that enabled people to live free from interference, that created liberty by embracing personal responsibility.”
~Joel Salatin, Homestead Tsunami
The Good Simple Life captured what Salatin wrote above—Salatin (and RFK Jr.) state that responsibility is learned by completing meaningful tasks:
The mundane (or what appears to be such) is not mundane simply—it is the teacher of life.
The training of the body and soul to do real meaningful tasks, while also learning how to accomplish those tasks is a necessity of this life. Now, obviously, we cannot do everything. We must economize because we cannot live life as an island. There is not enough time in a day under our humanly limited powers to accomplish everything we need to; we cannot become truly all encompassing creators.
Aristotle notes, it is also in our nature to be political—and that is, we need others.
There is no better way to create community than by sharing self-sufficient talents with neighbors. In this way, we combine our talents and specific skills to help each other. Some might raise cows, others might raise chickens (for meat or eggs—the two are differnt, and the chickens are also different), and others may know how to fix your John Deere.
Combining those skills makes for a strong community of shared self-sufficiency. It makes sense that vertically and horizontally, life improves in such a situation.
Old age certainly becomes an issue at some point, because we do slow down and parts of the body begin to fail. Yet, even if someone slows down, the ability to work and provide is a duty that most men have forgotten in their “easy” existence of plenty and sedentary work life. The reason why white collar people look down on blue collar workers, is because, they really do not know anything. Oh sure they know how to fleece people in some way in whatever techy cubicle etc., life they have created for themselves, but creating anything of value with their own hands? No. They have to call on the guy whom they despise to solve their problems.
They are lost when it comes to “the real.”
The lesson of cult classic Office Space is that men are not fit for the cubicle life as the main character leaves the tech world for real manly work at the end:
I left (for the most part) the academic life for building my own OG as well as homestead. I have traded in my closet full of suits for more rugged wear. As a result, I began building my workwear wardrobe (more on that coming in a poast here, and on the American Savage Garage Channel). Scott touched on the growing aesthetic of workwear here. I was forced into this limited stock atmosphere out of a need to be clothed in workwear more conducive to restoration work and future homesteading projects filling my list of things to get done.
You see, I will be building myself a lot of my own garage and homestead, planing an orchard, vegetable garden, and now a few vines for a personal winery. I may even get a 60s Mustang (or something else like a 1970s Bronco) to restore. I will at some point be building a classic farm fence, framing the interior of the OG, and if all goes to plan, spraying all the interior paint in the new house. Lots to do. And none of that includes the trenches I am going to dig for the electric, drain field (thats a sewer), and of course a fresh water well.
I surely needed something to work in for these and many other tasks. Where find good quality affordable workwear? It has been eye opening. Stay tuned.
See the self congratulatory masterbation, Coodley & Sarasohn, The Greening Years, 1964-1980.
You're going to be too busy to blog! A worthwhile trade-off! This is the kind of stuff they should be exposing our kids to in school. Whatever happened to wood shop and home economics? (Yes. I am that old.)