My Back to the Land Fantasy

…At our family dinners, the imminent demise of society has long been a favoured topic. But lately, our Armageddon fantasies, which used to seem so distant, are composed of one part Little House on the Prairie to two parts Mad Max. Conversation tends to focus on, during some unspecified disaster, what we will need to survive: enough people who know how to do useful things (such as plow a field, skin a cow, or can peaches); enough gas to actually get ourselves back to the family farm, and then enough weapons and fortifications to fend off marauders.

And with each conversation the voice in my head becomes louder, more insistent. I keep asking myself, is it time to head back to the land? And: will the land even have us any longer?

I like to believe that when you winnow human behaviour down to its most fundamental basics, there are really only a few things that matter. You need some place to hole up for the night (preferably some place safe and warm). You need enough to eat and drink. And you need to pass on your genetic material. On these few basic appetites is predicated most of human culture.

I like to remind myself that the most memorable thing about the PBS program Frontier House, which returned a group of families to the 1883 existence of homesteaders, wasn’t the daily struggles of pioneer life, but what happened after everyone went back to the ease and comfort of the 21st century. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sadder sight than the young son of one of the families sitting wanly bored to death in front of the TV in an enormous suburban tract house. The siren call of comfort is offered in lieu of hardship, but hardship and struggle can actually be rather good for people, whereas endless comfort is not.

The Tyee