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THE GOOD LIFE FORMULA

From http://www.motherearthnews.com/Homesteading-and-Self-Reliance/2003-10-01/Nearing-Enough.aspx

That candlelit night long ago, I read about how Scott, a former academic, and,Helen, a musician, built their first stone house while gardening among

Vermont boulders, and about their decid ing upon maple syrup as a cash crop

to round out their livelihood.

I read about their 10-year "pay-as-you-go" plan, their "Constitution of our

household organization" for living wisely and for avoiding debt. They planned to

"make a living under conditions that would preserve and enlarge joy in

workmanship, would give a sense of achievement, thereby promoting integrity

and self respect; would assure a large measure of self-sufficiency and thus

make it more difficult for civilization to impose restrictive and coercive economic

pressures, and make it easier to guarantee the solvency of the enterprise."

They were committed to raising as much food as they could, given local soil

and climate, and to eating with the seasons. As they kept no animals, they were

vegetarians who ate raw, whole food; this, in turn, meant that they spent scant

time in food preparation. They maintained that eating in-season, fresh, vital

food that they had grown themselves kept them healthy.

"One of the chief factors that took us out of the city into the country was anawareness of the menace to health arising out of food processing and

poisoning and a determination to safeguard ourselves against it," the Nearings

wrote. "Food processing, poisoning and drugging is undermining the health of

the American people as well as yielding large profits to the individuals and

corporations engaged in processing, poisoning and drugging."

The Nearings' rendering of The Good Life is neither fascist nor puritanical, nor

a capitalist commitment to work for work's sake, for God's sake or for the

bottom line's sake. The Nearings' theory and practice of living The Good Life is

an integrated balance of all works necessary to a thoroughgoing, unequivocal,

absolute life, including embracing good friends, developing live soil, being

socially aware and useful, growing vital food, and creating leisure time, music,

writing and art.

Their Good Life strategy also included using available building materials and

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doing the work of putting up their own stone and wood buildings, and even

making many pieces of equipment themselves, such as ladders and sleds,

while limiting the amount of purchased equipment. If they needed a bulldozer,

chainsaw, plow or tractor for a few hours or days, they would rent, trade or

barter for them with their neighbors.

Helen Nearing wrote: "... we made serious and various attempts to live at five

levels: with nature; by doing our daily stint of bread labor; by carrying on our

professional activities;by constant association with our fellow citizens;and by

unremitting efforts to cultivate the life of the mind and spirit."

They wrote that these five levels of living were contained in what they came to

call their "four-four-four formula." Four hours of each day were directed towards

"bread labor," the work that grows food or shovels out the outhouse.

Four hours a day were devoted to "professional activity," according to one's

skills, loves and special competencies, whether that be playing the violin or

writing books.

And four hours a day were "dedicated to fulfilling our obligations and

responsibilities as members of the human race and as participants in various

local, regional, national and world civic activities."

The Nearings' legacy continues to be the polestar, gyroscrope, map, heart,

conscience and plumb line for living a good life.