Many of my friends family, Professor has asked me “what do you want to do for the future”. recently this question has coming up in higher frequency as a graduation just had me few weeks ago. And my answer was always. I gonna go grow organic tomato in some corner of this country, most people laughed it off, think I was joking.
If you ask how the future world will look like, my answer will be a must be a very optimized, but yet Cold and crude world. If someone from the past were to come today, they wouldn’t be able to comprehends how those enormous machines walking through the fields and harvest unlimited amounts of cotton, corn and wheat, nor they will understand what those foam boards floating on the shelves has anything to do with the salad in front of them. Yet that’s civilization.
I was born in the city, a jungle formed by concrete and steel, with different shape and size of vehicle zigzag through the gap, and waving mob pouring to every corner. I walk in this madness, accustomed to it, yet have forgotten that this is not the original form of our species. While I truly enjoy this bustling world, at times, I find it exhausting.
It’s simple: human nature fears being bound and oppressed. We wish to have autonomy and like to have choices, but there’s rarely opportunities to choose. Civilization is a extra large size hotel California, once you are there, you may never leave.
I’m looking into organic garden and farming, it not because I love planet earth, nor for healthier eating. I just want to spend more time in a fantasy, a experience economy, giving myself a bit of illusion of a possibility that I can be self-sufficient and have choices.
You might say that agriculture is also a product of civilization. If civilization tires you, why not return to a more primitive era of hunting and gathering?
Well, I’m not a fundamentalist. Some people yearn to leave this mad world and return to a self-sufficient lifestyle. That’s not me. We always think we are the masters of our destiny, yet we are constantly tamed by this society. Fighting against the current is always losing battle, all I want to do is just to make the leash to feel a little bit looser.
Rather than saying I’m growing food, it’s really I’m growing myself.