I am not only “allergic” to the modern world, I truly dislike it. The worst ugliness seen in nature is still spectacularly beautiful compared to what man produces in captivity. What I mean by that is I’d rather watch a lightning storm cause a wildfire to devour 100 year old giant redwood trees or see a grizzly bear eat a baby deer than watch the news on any given day.

They’ve even taken the beauty of architecture away from us. Newer buildings built in the brutalist style make our cities look more and more like soulless prisons and they feel that way, too. To me at least. The vintage cars my husband hauls are pieces of art compared to a lot of what you see on the road today.

I would never do it now because I’m older and wiser, but as a teenager I’d drive miles out into the wilderness in California, mostly in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, and I’d rock climb sometimes by myself, always barefoot. It’s crazy to think I was so bold and fearless back then, but I felt safer out there than I did down in that valley full of lunatics. 😄

Granted, I did grow up rather rough, so I do have a bit of a jaded lens on the world, but now, at this stage in life, I have had enough life experiences and we’ve been to so many cities over the years, that I just can’t wrap my head around how anyone can stand to live like that.

Sure, go visit if that’s your thing, but all day, every day, day after day, year after year? How??? How can you live there? How can you stand the noise? How can you stand being so crammed in there? How can you stand the thought that your city is crawling with all manner of human predators who could pounce at any moment?

I suppose city people look at my life and say, how can you live there? How can you stand the quiet? How can you stand all that open space? How can you stand the thought that the woods are crawling with apex predators who could pounce at any moment?

I suppose they’d have a valid point. The difference I suppose is, we can open carry here and we don’t go into the woods without proper firepower. 😄

How many of us can honestly say our grandparents knew more about homesteading and self sufficiency than we do? How many of us have grandpas who hunted and fished or grandmas who grew a garden and canned her own food? Compare that to how many of us are still doing these things now and it’s really tragic.

Humans are born from the soil, not concrete. We connect to nature on unseen and yet to be understood levels. It’s just most humans are disconnected now and it’s getting worse each generation. Did you know that until 2007, more people in the world lived in rural communities than in the city? Here in America, until the Great Depression, most of us were still farmers or lived in smaller communities that relied on local farms and ranches. Factory farming just wasn’t a thing then.

The skills carried down for generations ended once we all headed into the cities to live, as Dave Matthews would say, like proud monkeys.

Are people truly happy in the city? I really can’t wrap my head around how. At least Dave gets it. I think you probably do, too.

Have a great Monday, everyone! 😘