I Think Human Beings Were Meant To Be Farmers

So the post title may be an exaggeration... or is it? I never mentioned this, but I just started a new job in the past month. (yay!!) It's office work, something I've never done full time before, and I've caught myself thinking very grand-scheme-of-life type thoughts as I make copies. I never really saw that coming, but its true. And it all started with a paper cut.

There I was, learning how the fancy copier works, and suddenly, slice. I yelped like I'd just sawed into my finger with a steak knife and immediately felt foolish when I saw the tiny little paper cut on my finger. Why are they always so disproportionately painful anyway? Wow, I thought, my work hazards include paper cuts. What if I was chopping wood as part of my day? I'd probably take off my foot. My brain sort of took off from there.

Remember Little House on the Prairie? HALT. You aren't allowed to think of Michael Landon Jr. or anything related to the TV show. NOTHING! I'm talking about Little House in the Big Woods, On the Shores of Silver Lake and These Happy Golden Years. The books. Remember in Little House in the Big Woods how they basically spent all their time growing food, hunting, preserving their produce, smoking their meat, storing up for the winter, keeping the house snug, making bullets by the fire and chasing away the wolves? I've started thinking about how awesome it would be to work for my living, not for money. As in, in order to live. To eat. To have a roof over my head.

I love Pa's crazy hair! :)

We work to make money so we can buy our food and pay someone else to put/keep a roof over us. I would love to have a go at growing my own food, even raising my own animals to eat them. (gulp...i understand this involves killing them myself...) Living in a house you built has always been enticing for me too. Living in a society where everybody works like that and they trade for what they need amongst themselves sounds pretty great to me. It sounds hard and dead-tiring and messy, but it just seems so much more REAL than getting paper cuts at a copier. (poor copier, I'm not trying to diss you, but you just don't measure up)

Most people will admit they are happiest when they are doing something meaningful. I guess my statement of "human beings were meant to be farmers" is just to say that I think we were all meant to labor in a way that is worthwhile and tests our endurance, character and creativity.