The first instalment of this short essay series addressed what I dubbed Inner Community.
Reading it back I realize I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
Nevertheless, that big bite is the very mentality it takes to start a new life as a rusticator. Which leads me to take an important stopover with you before getting into an eventual essay about Outer Community.
Take Courage
I need not wax poetically about courage. We all know its value is immense. Courage can never depreciate. Ever-empowering, I’d be surprised if there existed an earthly culture or spiritual tradition that didn’t consider bravery a cardinal virtue.
Check out any given homesteading blog and chances are you will find some content about how that person had to lay it on the line to transition.
So much of a rusticator’s lifestyle revolves around fucking up. The fear of such failure alone—and I mean repetitive failure—is what keeps most adults in a comfortable sleep, leading lives of quiet desperation, as Mr. Walden famously put it. To face the certitude of failure is always harrowing. We try to fortify ourselves against such blunders when setting sail to new waters, new lands.
The best we can do is focus on being prepared to leave behind urbanity’s opium of comfort and convenience in pursuit of a healthy, more rewarding lifestyle.
A Question of Fortitude
In my own journey, inquisitiveness has always helped dispel fears about the next step.
If you can relate, try listing all the questions that arise when imagining a new life for yourself on some land.
Where do you want to be? Near a river, a lake, an ocean? The mountains? Remote, or near a populated area?
What exactly do you want to do on your land?
Who do you want to involve?
When do you want to do it?
What do you need to do before you go your own way?
Why do you want to rusticate?
What’s your long game?
Sometimes to even just imagine a new life for yourself and/or your family takes bravery. Make no mistake about it, there is real risk involved for the rusticator-to-be. Depending on how people choose to do it, sometime more risk is involved, sometimes less,
Remember, courage is like a muscle. Lord knows you’ll need plenty of that where you’re going!
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