I know that the motivation behind the question is outside of the blog post, but I'm really curious, and would love to ask folks here, what is so exciting about living on a farm? Is it about independence? Or radical self reliance?
As a person who lived my whole life in cities, I have a very hard time to find an appeal in a lifestyle like the one described in an article.Can someone share what they like / appreciate about the life on a farm?
* Peace and quiet. It's quite evident whenever I visit a city, but it is, of course, a matter of getting used to it.
* Safety. Out here I only need to worry about the casual pack of wolves, or getting run over by a drunk neighbour out on the road with a tractor. Where I lived before, getting stabbed or shot during a mugging was an actual risk.
* It's away from the grind. Working from home, no matter if you do farm work or just work remotely, is much quieter than being in an office and you are able to concentrate and work uninterrupted in a way that simply isn't possible in most office environments.
* No commuting.
* An active lifestyle without having to resort to things like going to the gym.
* Community. Most people don't know their own neighbours. Out here, people stick together because there really isn't many other options. That's both a blessing and a curse, though.
Independence and self-reliance are nice bonuses, but they really just come with the lifestyle; you can't live on a farm without some of both.
I bought a farm 20 years ago and moved out of a large city. The benefits I get are:
(1) I can not see me neighbours. They can not see me. Cities just seem live hives of scum and villainy now.
(2) I can see the stars at night. All of them. The milky way is milky.
(3) The sky is not yellow-brown. It's blue and doesn't smell like car exhaust and human urine.
(4) It is quiet. Really, really quiet. No roar of traffic. You get annoyed by how loud the loon calls are at 06:00 because it disturbs the quiet, but then you smile because you can hear the loon calls.
There are, of course, down sides.
(a) rural internet speeds
(b) you want the trades to come or a delivery service? No.
(c) the snakes in the house keep the mouse population under control
(d) where I live, there are a million little things that want to suck your blood and spread disease until the snow falls, then there is lots of snow and you're left wondering which hell is worse
A lot of it is what you know. Different areas support different lifestyles. You have learned to enjoy the things you can do in a city: restaurants, walking where other people are walking, concerts, shopping, people watching (not a complete list). In the country we substitute respectively: cooking, solitary walks, listening to wildlife, making our own things, and watching nature. Of course you can do anything from either list in either place if you want to, but it is much harder so you do it less. Even where you can do something from the other list, your environment places limits (My workshop is larger than most houses...)
If I took you out of the city and forced you to work for me as farm labor (yet somehow as a free person not a slave) you would hate the first year or two. However after a few years you would learn the things you can do in the country. One day you would find yourself shooting a deer off your back deck and realize that you used to think guns should be illegal...
The food. When it's small scale and the varieties aren't selected for industrial efficiency, many fruits and vegetables taste like they're from another world. Coming from another country, the biggest appeal is eating strawberries and blueberries that taste like the blueberries and strawberries I remember as a child and tomatoes and cucumbers that have actual flavor that can carry a salad without globs of "dressing." I think I've had a proper blueberry once in 20 years and only because it was some celebrity chef known for obsessing over his ingredients.
Thankfully, I have family members living out this dream so I don't have to do all the hard work myself :)
A long time ago a friend of mine was trying to convince me to try surfing. He finally got me in the water when he said, "Dude, when was the last time your were tired out from having fun?"
(It didn't go well. At one point I managed to actually land on his back, surfboard and all. But that's beside the point.)
I grew up in a farming area, and worked on farms as a teen.
There's nothing good about it if you need the farm to make a living.
The wisdom for the past few decades is to have a city job to subsidize the farm.
I have relatives (a couple) who sadly quit their city jobs and bought a farm without local office jobs. They lost everything, even though the husband grew up on a family farm. Common sense isn't that common.
On the other hand, I have friends who grew flowers until weed was legalized, and they switched crops and are making millions now. Already had the land, greenhouses and equipment, just changed the seeds one year. Bam!
My anecdotal experience (and I'm not remotely close to Marc Andreessen in wealth and power) is that there is a lot of benefits in structure and schedule.
Knowing how big part of your day will play out is a very powerful thing. It removes so much stress and uncertainty.
In the end of the day it's a question of balance. It's probably unhealthy to plan every single hour of your life in advance (which Marc does not do), and the same goes with allowing too much spontaneity.
ha, interesting. I was personally impressed (and inspired!) how much of a free unscheduled time Marc maintains.
I disagree that his life is boring. He is influencing directly and non-directly the decisions that shape the future of humanity. What is boring about that?
I "discovered" this blog a couple of month ago, and I absolutely love it. The recent posts about agriculture in pre-modern times[0] are particularly insightful and I enjoyed so much to read.
I would like to add to this that it's definitely not unique to the US. Growing up in Eastern Europe the attitudes of young people around me were very similar - you want to get out of the house ASAP. The age threshold would be somewhat higher (maybe mid-20s instead of 18), but overall trying to become independent and self-reliant was considered a virtue.
I'm wondering how much of it is a form of filtering based on a social bias. There are a lot of hobbies in the world (that the author would potentially enjoy), but the ones that first come to mind are ones that have an examples nearby (e.g. my teammate Dan mentioned he went rock climbing on Sunday)
In my experience - heavily relying on relationships built before is how a lot of things are actually get done. While my company closed its offices in March - I see people getting `socially distanced` coffee with their co-workers more and more.
I think there are tasks / kind of work, that requires minimal communication or relationship building, and it's possible to optimize WFH setup to be very productive at it (way more productive than in the office). A lot of comments on HN are alluding to that some people figured that out and are good at it.
There are also tasks that are hard or borderline impossible to do remote. Relationships are harder. Negotiations are harder. Random lunch conversations don't happen anymore, the serendipity of new learnings is lost.
I've been to Helsinki, it's a lovely place, but calling it a big city is misleading at best.