How to have the life you want in 20 years?

Many urbanites have a similar pastoral dream in their hearts:

In a beautiful mountain village, book a small courtyard, avoid the crowds, and read in sunny weather. No intrigues, no worries, the air is always fresh, the sky is always blue?

You might say, just think about this kind of life. After all, you still have to make money to support your family, so you can’t be too involved with it. Isolated from the world. But I want to tell you that there are already people living like this and still maintaining close ties to the city.

How is this done?

Today, I would like to share with you a book related to this: "The Life of a Half-Farmer and Half-X". Maybe it can't completely fulfill our pastoral dream, but the ideas and propositions in it may make you look at life from a different perspective.

01

Half of them work for their own livelihood, and half of them work for fun

His name is Shiomi Naoki, and he was originally an employee of a mail order company in Kyoto, Japan.

In 1999, at the age of 33, he took his wife, daughter and father back to his hometown Ayabe City, Kyoto Prefecture, and rented 4 acres of farmland, more than half of which was used to cultivate rice, and the rest was planted with sweet potatoes and beans. .

His farming methods are somewhat primitive: no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used, seedlings are raised in March, weeded in April, and plowed and transplanted in May. The whole family works together, and after the rice is harvested and dried in September and October, a small ceremony will be held to celebrate the harvest.

The food and vegetables for a family of four all come from their work on this land, and even the glutinous rice used to make rice wine is grown by themselves.

Isn’t this kind of life of self-cultivation and self-sufficiency enviable?

In Shiomi Naoki’s rice fields, the planting, weeding and harvesting of rice are all manual work. You will definitely ask, if you farm by yourself and have a full stomach, what can you do if you don’t have a stable cash income? How about covering daily expenses?

Of course Shiomi Naoki has taken this into consideration.

On the one hand, their family practices the "subtraction" life principle and minimizes unnecessary consumption and waste. For example, don’t buy a microwave oven, use a kettle instead of buying bottled water, and buy high-priced, high-quality and durable items that are necessary for a long time, such as vacuum cleaners and kitchen utensils.

After returning home, for the sake of environmental protection, I usually rely on bicycles to travel.

On the other hand, in addition to doing farm work, Shiomi Naoki also works in the local external publicity agency in his hometown, managing web information and producing electronic publications to attract urbanites to come to communicate and settle down. The remuneration from this job is the main source of income for the family.

In this way, Naoki Shiomi does not look like an office worker who works hard in a cubicle all day long, nor does he look like a recluse who is completely stoic and isolated from the world.

He named this lifestyle of self-cultivation and paid work as "half-farmer, half-X".

"Nong" is easy to understand, but this "X" is very knowledgeable.

Naoki Shiomi said that X does not simply refer to a part-time job, but the true interest of everyone, the mission of being able to use their expertise in exchange for rewards and at the same time contribute to society.

For example, Naoki Shiomi believes that his "X" mission is to promote the "half-farmer, half-X" lifestyle. Coincidentally, this is perfectly integrated with his work in the local publicity department, so he actively connects houses and farmland for immigrants to the local area, and guides everyone to find their own "X" mission and realize its social value.

Naoki Shiomi communicates with people from the city on the concept of half-farmer and half-X.

Under his guidance and attraction, people of all ages and backgrounds practice "half-farmer, half-X" Others have emerged, such as:

An eighty-year-old woman who is good at making desserts and is also a lecturer at a cooking school;

A woman in her thirties who loves movies A middle-aged man, who works as a translator of movie subtitles while farming;

A technician who retired early from an electrical machinery company, in addition to farming, is also engaged in research on the effective use of garbage.

It sounds perfect to be able to work on your own and be able to do what you are interested in. But the value of half-farmer and half-X goes beyond helping individuals realize their pastoral ideals.

02

Feel the love and family while working

Shudanjun observed that many office workers in big cities today have experienced family crises: children Working in other places, the old man stays alone in an empty nest; the couple works hard alone and is too lazy to communicate at home; the parents are busy at work and the children are left to grandma?

The house is spacious, but there is no comfort and no place for emotions.

One of the most important values ??of half-farmer, half-X life is that people can re-understand the meaning of family. Naoki Shiomi has a deep understanding of this:

Friendly relatives and labor together produce their own food and are closely connected to every life. In other words, it is a way of life that returns to the essence of life. This is the greatest function of the family and its most important teaching.

In labor, as long as you experience that you can help someone or assist in completing something, you will feel full of joy, which is especially beneficial to the growth of children:

I remember when I was a child, whenever I helped a little in the fields, my parents would say "thank you" or "you were a big help", etc., which made me feel like I had suddenly grown up.

In rural areas in the past, even children were important human resources; children felt that they were valued and needed by their families, and the love between parents and children grew from this.

At the same time, living in the country reduces unnecessary social entertainment, so time outside of labor and work can be reserved for family members, and when everyone gathers in one room, it will naturally happen Conversations, emotional exchanges occur.

In Ayabe, Shiomi Naoki’s hometown, the grassland is restored and well-protected. After finishing the day’s work, Shiomi Naoki’s family usually has dinner at 18:00. After the meal, they do not watch TV, but Go to bed early at 20 o'clock. Before going to bed, Naoki Shiomi would lie in bed with her daughter and read her stories.

He said that the time that children are willing to be around their parents is actually only a few years, and they need to be cherished.

It can take care of the material needs of the family, satisfy the development of personal interests, and enhance the emotional connection between family members. It can be said that as a way of life, "half-farmer, half-X" is already very attractive. .

But what impressed Shudanjun the most was Naoki Shiomi’s philosophy and thinking about the entire human race and the environment behind “Half Farmer, Half X”.

03

Looking at the world from a seed

After starting a "half-agricultural, half-X" life, we have achieved self-sufficiency in rice, fruits and vegetables, and our salt knowledge is straight. Ji felt sincerely happy.

But one day, he suddenly realized that this was not truly "completely self-sufficient" because seeds for almost all vegetables needed to be purchased from seedling companies every year!

Many people may not know that most of the vegetables we eat are grown from seeds sold by agricultural companies. In order to ensure the quality of vegetables after they grow, these seeds are generally cultivated artificially and are not produced naturally and passed down from generation to generation.

At the same time, it also means that only the first generation can grow good-quality vegetables, and the standards after the second generation are uneven.

In order to ensure quality and be more cost-effective economically, almost all farmers adopt the method of buying seeds for production, and abandon the traditional work of collecting natural seeds, storing and raising seedlings.

This turns the planting of crops, which is supposed to be a multi-generational inheritance of life, into a "generational" production of "buying seeds - harvesting - buying seeds again" that lacks the transmission of life.

Naoki Shiomi believes that this model is very undesirable because it cuts off the connection between crop generations and the connection between life. So he would rather accept relatively low yields and quality and insist on using native seeds that have not been artificially cultivated.

The radishes grown by Naoki Shiomi's family are waiting to be pickled, but what worries him even more is that when humans "generate" their seeds, they also "generate" their own hearts. , many things in today's society are based on one generation:

The proliferation of disposable products for convenience, the hunting of wild animals to obtain fur, and the immediate economic gain Polluting the air and rivers for profit?

Naoki Shiomi said that human beings seem to regard themselves as the last inhabitants, living squanderingly without considering their responsibilities to future generations.

Naoki Shiomi was under the ancient trees in his hometown. When he was a child, he learned to respect nature from the activities of villagers worshiping mountain gods

In contrast, he more recognized The life philosophy of the Iroquois tribe, the indigenous people of North America -

From whether this tree should be cut down, whether this river should be buried, to whether it should fight with other tribes, the criteria for all decisions are He was concerned about the consequences that "the descendants of seven generations later" would suffer. If a generation is calculated in thirty years, it means that the vision is pushed back to 210 years later to decide what to do now.

The half-agriculture and half-X approach he strongly promotes, whether it is using native seeds in farming, not using pesticides, or adhering to the "subtraction" principle in life, is all about implementing this sustainable and consistent approach. The value concept of the natural way:

Don’t measure happiness with money, but with disposable time;

Not to possess as much as possible, but to use enough;

It is not about work that comes first, but about respecting interests and vocation;

It is not just about immediate interests, but about taking into account the responsibility to future generations.

There is a very interesting trend in the evolution of human civilization:

In agricultural society, people and work were combined within the family;

After the Industrial Revolution , people are separated from their families and go to work in companies and institutions;

The ongoing knowledge revolution liberates people from institutions, and individual productivity has been liberated as never before, and people and work are extremely connected. May return to the family again.

The life of half farmers and half X is exactly in line with this general trend.

Even judging from the current signs in other countries around the world, half-peasants and half-X are by no means a utopian fantasy:

When we change the focus of values ??from the first, Move away from competition and money, turn to openness, enjoyment, interest, and create a new way of life. What's impossible?

Since returning home in 1999, Naoki Shiomi has been practicing his thoughts and ideas on life for nearly 20 years. After "The Life of a Half-Peasant, Half-X" was published in 2003, it has subtly changed the lives of many people.

In China, there are young people who return to their hometowns to start businesses, artists who move to Yunnan and are known as the Yungui School, weekend farmers who work in the city on weekdays and farm in the suburbs on weekends, and even grow vegetables on their own balconies. Urban fruit farmers are practitioners of half farming and half farming.

After the book "Half Farmer, Half X" was published in Taiwan, Shiomi Naoki was invited as a lecturer five times to experience agricultural work with local young people. The picture was taken in the autumn of 2011. Hualien County, Taiwan.

I believe that with the development of transportation and the Internet, there will be more and more new life possibilities.

This book "The Life of Half Peasants and Half X" is not so much a textbook on lifestyle as it is a preaching manual for advanced values. Even though its ideas and propositions were born nearly twenty years ago, they are still ahead of the times and ahead of the times.

Not everyone is suitable to practice half farming and half X now, but after reading its propositions and concepts, whether you will truly think about your vocation and mission, or try to reduce resource consumption and live a subtractive life, it will It means you are one step closer to a better life.