The Total Infantilization of Humanity & How We Overcome It
Defying conventional wisdom of civilized society might be the best thing we can do
Idéalités, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Growing season is upon us here in much of the United States, and for some reason it calls forth the pensive side of me. My thoughts wander most when I’m seeding trays or working in the garden. (This year, however, my gardening work is limited to seeding and eventually transplanting said seedlings, due to a shoulder injury.) Lately, I’ve been musing on the shift from production-oriented economies to service-oriented ones has played a significant role in the infantilization of humanity. (Thank you globalism and division of labor!)
And by infantilization, I mean exactly that: we have become overgrown babies of sorts, lacking in the skills to feed, clothe, and shelter ourselves without employing others and handing over some of our hard-won cash. I include myself in this category as well. (I couldn’t make an article of clothing if I tried, folks.) This infantilization is particularly strong in developed nations, but it’s been swiftly taking over much of the developing world, as it on the Herculean task of doing our production and call center work. Most life-giving skills got lost in the space of only one or two generations. And humanity’s obsession with technology (in the electronic sense) and digital-everything has only compounded the issue.
Sure, we can work to make money to meet our material wants and needs. But what happens when that money becomes worthless? Or, at the very least, worth a lot less? That job of running a marketing department or managing social media accounts or stocking shelves in an electronics store probably won’t still exist. After all, the demand for such services plummets when the entire population is just barely keeping enough food on the table.
Diminished buying power is a real thing, and it’s decimating the livelihoods of working and middle class people the planet over. So, as currencies fail and more banks close, one of the few ways to circumvent such hardship is to learn how to do some things ourselves. We all have the capacity to learn new skills, ones that are life-promoting and may even allow us to trade and barter with others, regardless of where we live or what the circumstances may be.
In my grandparents’ day (born late 1800s to early 1900s), many people had at least one valuable skill, whether it be mending (or making) clothes, growing food, building basic homes, animal husbandry, making furniture, canning food, crafting shoes, hunting, cooking, etc. And they often had more than one, especially if they lived outside a city as most people did.
We Can All Grow Food — Anywhere
Whether it’s on the windowsill above our kitchen sink, our tiny apartment patio, our urban postage stamp of a backyard or our sprawling lawn in the ex-burbs, many varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs are quite hardy and grow easily. Radishes, lettuce, spinach, garlic, potatoes, yucca, green beans, and more. Of course, these vary based on where you live. (We have plenty of gardeners who subscribe to OTL, so feel free to ask them (or me) questions in the comments section.)
I guess it’s no surprise that these thoughts descended upon me as I recently thought back to the me who, a decade ago, knew next to nothing about growing food. I started to learn by volunteering via Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), which links organic farms all over the globe with eager volunteers in exchange for food and accommodation. And then, upon moving back to the US after living abroad for several years, I had some work-trade arrangements with nearby farms to which I dedicated much of my spare time. They got my labor, and I got to harvest as much food as I needed at the end of each day.
One of the most valuable takeaways from my food-growing life that I have to offer is that you don’t need much money, knowledge, or space to get started. You don’t need to live in the countryside. And you don’t need to work on a farm to learn what you need. (Although, if you decide to do so, choose a small, local organic farm that grows a variety of food.) In fact, YouTube is perfect way to learn. And you can do more in an apartment than you think.
Here are a few places to get started. Please note: I do not have any affiliation with any of these people (personally or professionally). I simply suggest them as resources:
Robin Greenfield talks about how his journey of opting out of consuming industrialized food and how he grew and foraged all of his food for an entire year.
Robin Greenfield gives an in-depth talk about his year of growing and foraging all of his own food.
Grow Your Own Groceries: An online course that creator Marjorie Wildcraft says will teach you to grow a significant portion of your food in the area the size of 2 or 3 parking stalls.
The Grow Network: A great resource for sustainable living. It’s also run by Marjorie Wildcraft and has an incredibly active forum.
YouTube Channels for Beginning Gardeners
The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni
The Urban Farmer (Now known as Off-Grid w/Curtis Stone. Scroll back to his videos from 4 to 9 years ago when he was farming in back and fronts yards in urban Canada.)
Video for urban dwellers wanting to grow indoors simply: Growing Food Indoors -The Ultimate Guide
Great video for urban dwellers who want to grow indoors are enjoy DIY: Home Hydroponic Farm: Hundreds of Pounds of Produce in 10 Square Feet
Buying Seeds
The type of seeds and where you buy them from makes a tremendous difference in the quality of the food you grow.
Always buy heirloom and/or open-pollinated seeds. These seeds are pure in that they have not been tampered with by humans. Steer clear of hybrid and genetically modified seeds. I call these “dead seeds.” Sure, they’ll grow plants, but whatever seeds you collect from those plants once they “go to seed” will not yield any plants/food if planted the the following season.
Seed Company Recommendations
USA
True Leaf Market/Sustainable Seed Company (Salt Lake City, Utah) — Seed and growing supplies
Fedco (Clinton, Maine) — Seeds, trees, and growing supplies
Sow True Seeds (Asheville, North Carolina) — Specializing in heirloom and open-pollinated seeds
Canada
UK
Europe
Impecta (Sweden)
Vitalis Organic Seeds (Distribution centers throughout Europe)
Australia & New Zealand
The Seed Collection (Australia)
Koanga Institute (New Zealand) - Shop and research center
Learn to Build & Craft
Live in a city apartment and don’t have the space to practice building larger structures? Why not learn how to build something small, like a side table? Or how to carve a bowl?
Many cities have workshops where you can take classes, borrow tools, etc. (Examples: CraterWorks Makerspace in Oregon, TinkerMill in Colorado, The Makers Mill in New Hampshire, The Open Bench Project in Maine, Forge Greensboro in North Carolina, Dallas Makerspace in Texas, etc.)
And once you learn some basic skills, keep practicing and expanding them. It’s incredible how quickly our self-respect and confidence soars when we realize we can fend for ourselves in a very tangible way.
A New Focus
As the ever-talented photographer GE McKerrihan commented on my previous article, “The future is not looking so bright, except in the small corners of our individual worlds. Those worlds created consciously.” And I believe it’s those small corners that is the key to thriving these days. Whether it’s creating something beautiful or thought-provoking, or doing something practical that enhances our lives or of those of the people around, there is a lot each of us can do to bring more goodness into the worlds we inhabit. Focusing on the things we can’t control will only drive us nuts (me a couple of weeks ago).
In the next article, we’ll examine the life of an incredible and inspiring human who lived with intention, created much beauty, and co-existed with nature in near-pure harmony. Stay tuned, friends.
COVID showed us the fragility of our supply chain, when for a brief time toilet tissue became the currency of the realm. The Powers That Be are doing a masterful job of terrorizing the public and convincing them that only the Big Brother of our government can save them. The populace has grumbled about food prices and the fact that virtually everything we buy is ours for a short time before continuing its final journey to the landfill. As South Park pointed out in a recent episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcoGzT9QrTI) nobody knows how to fix stuff. Or grow stuff. Or do anything, really, that contributes to health and safety. When the collapse comes it will be like bankruptcy - first slowly, then suddenly. At that point everything is going to be very local. In one of your early posts you mentioned how you had canvassed your small community to discover who had skills, weapons, and materials that could be of use. Now is the time to start learning to grow things, to fix things, and to get to know your neighbors.