"The Simple Life"

On the drive from Puebla to Mexico City today I noticed, not for the first time, the significant amount of farming that still takes place at what we would call a primitive level. I seen one guy doing some kind of ploughing with a sorry looking pair of oxen, several people out in open fields tending their vegetables with hoes and such, and also several small horses and donkeys attached to a cart of some kind.

It brought me back to a time when I was perhaps 14 years old, when we (me and any varied number of my siblings) would occasionally be hired out to a farmer down the road who still used horses for all of his farming. What I find interesting about that time as I look back on it, was that I remember always enjoying going to his place to help out. That’s worth mentioning because I can honestly say that I enjoyed exactly zero percent of my time spent in the service of my parents in their farming endeavors’….well almost zero anyway. Well yah, actually zero! Well no…when I think longer I distinctly remember that I liked killing chickens. I remember one special time when I missed my aim with the hatchet and only cut half of his head off. Got him right through the left eyeball! That was really cool!

Speaking of uncomplicated, this simple farmer did not even have a wife…only a live in housekeeper?? To this day I never really wondered about that. I can’t quite remember her name, but I guarantee you that at least one of my idiot siblings will.

Anyway, what do you suppose the difference was? Why did I like going to his place to farm, other than the fact that it was away from home? I suggest to you that perhaps it was the simplicity of it. Life is so complicated and we are so dependent on all of the technology we have created, that it somehow leaves us in a constant state of anxiety over our dependence. I know it’s true for me at least.

Case in point. An hour or so after my enjoyment of the simple farming scenes along the highway I found myself in the Mexico City airport with a Blackberry that suddenly would not “Scroll down”!!! It would go every other which way, but without that one simple little function it was practically useless. I was in a panic…literally. My anxiety level went way up immediately. How was I going to survive the rest of my trip home, let alone maybe part of tomorrow until such time as I could get a repair or replacement? I ain’t kidding….I was stressed! I didn’t need it for anything in urgent, and in the event of anyone needing me it would still take incoming calls and yet I suddenly felt so vulnerable….without my fucking e-mail and cell phone!!! Unbelievable eh? There’s something very wrong with that, or with me, or with all of us.

I need to simplify my life. There’s enough reasons to feel vulnerable in life without the added pressure of depending on machinery. Maybe one of these days I’ll leave home for a few hours without my phone. By the way I always take it with me when I go out for a bike ride! In case my bike breaks!

And yet….I like my computer, my blackberry, my bike, my RV, my tractor etc. I must be addicted to feel such a powerful need.

Maybe I need to buy a horse or some chickens. Of course I suppose that if my livelihood depended on the health of that one horse it could be a bit stressful as well. Then again, you can always beat a horse if you feel like it, and get some satisfaction that way. If I beat my blackberry it would probably only be good for one such gratifying moment.

Travel day, so no training today. Hopefully I will be In Canada for the next 3 weeks and so I hope to really make some headway.

I wish to dedicate day 162 to simple gentleman farmer Mr Elgin Snowe, who we affectionately called Elgie. He let me steer his horses.

“Simplify is making the journey of this life with just enough baggage”---Charles Dudley Warner

Love
peter