I had resigned from my University Job.
And working from home as a clinical trials expert I was making plenty of money through designing, analysis and reporting of clinical trials.
I was spending money without thinking. I ate, drank and smoked whatever I wanted, whenever I wished to. I felt great!
I was always working and not at all taking care of myself.
I was getting sicker by the day. I realized that I am living a bad lifestyle.
I wanted to change my lifestyle. But I was lost. I did not know where to start.
I saw that many IT professionals are taking up farming, after exhaustion from their work.
This idea looked good to me. Man always thinks that doing the exact opposite is the solution! This is not true though. Doing less of what we are doing is the solution to problems.
One fine day, I said to Savithri, “let’s see what this is all about farming”. So much romantic discussion was happening about farming. That farming was the first profession, cow is mother, farming reduces carbon footprints, farming is the only honest profession, and farming is a cure-all for all the problems and so on.
It looked perfect.
We sold our car, washing machine, television, dishwasher, refrigerator, sofa and dozens of other comforts. Packed our bags and shifted to Halligeri village near Dharwad.
Here, we had volunteered to work at a Scientists farm. He was also talking romantically about farming every day. Myself, Savitri, Adhya and Anju worked daily at this farm as volunteers. We had rented a tiny home in the village.
We met many people who have shifted to farming after living a city life, after retirement from their jobs or people who have quit their jobs for farming. Many such people visited here.
I worked everyday at the farm just like a labourer.
However, within the first 2 months, we realized that everything they are saying about farming is just plain bullshit.
Farming is the toughest profession for making money. Farming is highly unstable. Farming needs heavy physical work which none of the schooled people can do. Farming also needs learning like any other skill. Farm laborers are not easily available nowadays. And so on it goes.
Most of the IT professionals who shift to farming have become further frustrated, tired, lost their savings and were losing their minds. Ashamed to accept the reality, they have preferred to sing romantic songs about farming. Living in a denial of the disillusionment.
In the midst of romanticizing the farm life, the farm owner said that “simplicity is very costly”. This made me realize that there is something seriously wrong in the approach of these graduate farmers. That’s the moment I realized that all these educated farmers are struggling because they are trying to buy the simplicity.
After another 3 months of working at the farm, I decided to quit.
Instead of using the existing electricity connection, they are spending on installing solar systems.
Instead of building a tiny practical home at the farm, they are talking perpetually about the magic of mud homes. Spending lakhs of rupees on mud homes.
Instead of staying on the farm, they are residing in the nearby city and struggling to take care of both places.
They are exhausting all their savings with one or other idea.
Instead of having open discussions to establish cooperation between family members about farming lifestyle, conflicts have been going on due to rigidity in beliefs & dishonesty. Almost all of these farmers said that their wife is not cooperating with the farming lifestyle!
Instead of accepting farming as a lifestyle, they are dealing with it as a business. Farming is the worst possible business. It fails as soon as it is converted into a business. Farming can only be converted to business by stabilizing the production, value addition, maintaining high quality, creation of a buyer base and selling at whatever price one needs. This takes some years.
And so on the list goes.
The romantic farmers are neither farming, nor living in the farm.
All these people are unable to give up their addiction to complexity. Instead they are destroying the inherent simplicity of the farm and making it complex.
We have been living on our farm for almost 4 years now.
We regularly try various options.
We never try to follow or learn from others.
We just grow and do whatever we feel like. Whatever works, we continue to improve it.
We have given up crop farming. We are growing vegetables and fruits only. This works for us well. Not a single farm around us, in a hundreds of kilometers radius, has a family that lives on a farm and grows vegetables and fruits. All the farms around us grow crops. But that does not work for us. Growing crops is just not suitable for our way of life.
We have implemented a minimalistic approach to our farm life. Before starting anything at the farm, we make sure it’s absolutely necessary.
Within 4 years, complexity in our life was replaced with simplicity.
Farm takes away our complexity. Only necessary things remain. But we need to surrender to the farm. Unfortunately, an intelligent person cannot surrender. He thinks he is smart and goes on adding further layers of complexity.
Farms cannot solve our problems. Farm gives a safe space and opportunity so that we can get away from our problems.
However, if you carry those problems as your needs, habits, wants, passion etc, farm cannot be of any help.
Farms are simple. We are complex. Instead of converting our farms, we should focus on converting ourselves. It's very very easy. Go to the farm and lose yourself. That's how you lose complexity.
Simplicity is free. Complexity is costly. If your simplicity is costing, it means you are still practicing complexity. But have labeled it as simplicity!
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