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
No comments:
Post a Comment