Joel Caris

One of the reasons I have been somewhat silent lately is that I have been thinking pretty hard about Voltaire's “Oui, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.”

As a culture, we have moved about as far from this simple suggestion as possible. Everything that happens and every person around me seems to want to draw my attention from my garden to what is perceived by others as problems that I should care about. Events a continent away are parsed in detail to attract my attention and draw my ire. Yet when I look at the "problem", it is really someone else's problem that they attempt to make mine by creating an imaginary linkage between their problem and my life. I would estimate that 99% of the time the linkage does not truly exist.

I have spent nearly ten years now stripping away problems from my own life (which is tending my garden). I have a small garden, bounded by a small retirement, a wee bit of savings, and social security. My garden is currently well kept and the small harvest is sufficient. I am content.

But the electrons that constitute the "news and commentary" spend a great deal of rhetorical energy trying to convince me that the problems in gardens thousands of miles away from me are my problems. I no longer believe this is the case. People killing people 7,000 miles away is not a weed in my garden. The possibility of plastic shit I don't need costing more at the Wal-Mart because the government want to tax plastic shit I don't need isn't my problem. Someone somewhere is not invited to a function because of they have different or different ways of utilizing their genitalia is not my problem. Opinions about others relative poverty or wealth are not my problem.

I suppose that I could construct a chain of potential for all of these problems that would lead me to think somehow these problems are my problems, but I just don't have the inclination or the energy, and the case made by these chains would be weak at best. At the end of the day, I think that it is important to realize that gardens have good and bad years. Weeds happen. Droughts are unwelcome. Pests are annoying.

Now don't get me wrong. I will still bitch about things, but it will be like watching the a storm front come in. I will wonder if the gust front will play itself out across the valley or will it knock down my plants with its squall of hail. But the storm is part of taking care of the garden. I don't have the ability to change the storm, all I can do is deal with the effects.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee. Have a read:

https://libertiesjournal.com/online-articles/apology-for-decadence-pleasures-of-empire-at-worlds-end/