farmdoc's blog post number 32

Around this time each year, as the evenings draw in and the soil cools, I get introspective. Last Tuesday my introspection had ample time to surface because I spent over an hour waiting on telephone enquiry lines (to utility company then hospital accounts office then tax department). During the forgettable music (thankfully not Vivaldi’s Four Seasons) and incessant assurances I was moving up the queue, suddenly a metaphor popped into my consciousness: ‘The fabric of our society is fraying’. Our laws, regulations, rules, policies and procedures are so complex that to the ordinary man they are unintelligible, unnavigable and sometimes self-contradictory. And in response we need to spend more time waiting on more help lines and/or on internet FAQ pages. Taken to its extreme, we will eventually spend all our time doing this, leaving no time for anything else. At that moment the politicians, bureaucrats and corporate managerialists will have won, and everyman (that is, you and me) will have lost. I know I am a pessimist and I need to be optimistic for the sake of my children and grandchildren. The Talmud, long before the music group REM, said that living well is the best revenge. I’m trying to live well. And I’m abstaining from telephone enquiry lines until the spring – when the days lengthen and the soil warms.