Musonius Rufus, Lectures 11.3

In fact, to me this is the most agreeable of all aspects of farming, because it gives the spirit more leisure to reflect on and to investigate the things that have to do with our own development and training.

For while, to be sure, the occupations which strain and tire the whole body compel the mind to share in concentration upon them, or at all events, upon the body, yet the occupations which require not too much physical exertion do not hinder the mind from reflecting on some of the higher things and by such reasoning from increasing its own wisdom—a goal toward which every philosopher earnestly strives.

Hesiod could be both a shepherd and a great poet, and Wendell Berry assures us that farmers often make for the best philosophers. As with all things in Stoicism, the central question will always be about what can best help us to become more virtuous, and so to be happy. Is there really something especially noble about the agrarian life?

I would have probably been dubious of any such claim when I was younger, when the call of the city and of industry was so seductive, but as I grow older and just a bit more experienced, I think I begin to understand.

Though I once had many opportunities to live closer to the land, I sadly never made a habit of it. I regret this now. Perhaps if I had managed to do so, I would not think that farming was such a burden, and I would also not be such a terrible gardener. I will still cringe at the labor involved, at the toil and the sweat, and it seems a bit strange to me when Musonius says that the physical effort of farming is hardly so bad.

What I find interesting, however, is that when I eventually moved away from the city and into the country, the people I did meet who still worked in farming, now sadly a dying breed, never complained about the hours or the heaviness of the work.

Yes, they got up early, and yes, they were constantly active, and yes, they didn’t stop until it was dark, but this did not seem to trouble them at all. What troubled them was the slow creep of suburbia, the restrictions on selling their produce, and the threat of total mechanization. They feared losing their livelihoods, and they did not want to see a way of life disappear.

Through it all, I must also admit that they came across as some of the most human people I had ever met. They often had a hard edge, but, on the whole, they thought more, they discussed more, and they laughed more than the other pale souls I knew. I started to see that it was hard to win their trust, but once it was won it was absolutely assured.

How did they find the time and the energy to be this way? There may not have been refined in the usual bourgeois sense, but there were brilliant rays of character that outshone all the glorified office managers I was so familiar with.

Perhaps this was because their work actually encouraged them to find meaning, the opportunity to reflect.

I do not mean a leisure of the sort championed by stuffy college professors, who think it rustic to smoke corncob pipes while sipping expensive whiskey on their patios.

No, I mean that sense of dignity I could get from doing the most primitive manual work. At exactly the same time I could use my mind in one worthwhile way, while my hands were doing something else in another worthwhile way. Is this what Musonius meant?

Soon after my wife and I moved to Texas, we bit off a bit more than we could chew by renting a house with what I thought of as a massive plot of land, but what any decent Texan saw as a quaint back yard. As spring came around, I neglected to do any weeding or mowing. Before too long, there was a jungle back there.

My neighbors had a good laugh at my expense. “That’ll now be a full day’s work to clear it, though for a Yankee it’ll probably be two or three days. Unless he’s a yuppie and pays someone else to do it for him.”

And that is exactly how long it took me, as I stubbornly refused to hire anyone to do what I should have done many weeks earlier. It was already hot as hell, and there I was, chopping and hacking away, craving a cold beer but knowing that I wouldn’t come back out once I had gone to the comfort of indoors.

I still have a powerful memory of all the reflecting I did during those few days, and it wasn’t just about complaining and resentment. I credit those few days with two things: the ability to write almost my entire doctoral dissertation in three weeks after I was done, and the gift of learning a deep sense of humility from my own shame.

It was the first time that I truly saw how the right kind of work of the body could do wonders for the right kind of work of the soul.

Written in 11/1999