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Have Taken Up Farming

dylan.gr

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Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#21

Post by Peroni »

Nition wrote: post #8

> From a spiritual perspective, there are only two career paths one can take: farmer or artisan. Anything else unavoidably involves doing evil or is essentially meaningless. I thought this was a beautiful statement; something to really help us think about what we're trying to do here on Earth. But personally I would add Artist to this. Painter, sculptor, musician, writer, poet, and so on. We need those too. Edit: As…

Teachers, Doctors, Nurses, Fire fighters... I can think of an endless list of service based career paths that involve no evil, and are immensely meaningful.

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#22

Post by lukan »

laszlojamf wrote: post #3

I tried doing the same thing, happy to see it worked out for somebody! I just didn't have the capital or social safety net to get the farm off the ground, so I eventually had to sell the farm and go back to coding. Someday though...

I have the feeling, they do not make a profit out of it.

This blogpost might generate more profits, but I doubt they are even close to being profitable and have other income/savings.

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#23

Post by NoBeardMarch »

Nition wrote: post #8

> From a spiritual perspective, there are only two career paths one can take: farmer or artisan. Anything else unavoidably involves doing evil or is essentially meaningless. I thought this was a beautiful statement; something to really help us think about what we're trying to do here on Earth. But personally I would add Artist to this. Painter, sculptor, musician, writer, poet, and so on. We need those too. Edit: As…

I disagree, it is not significant at all if you think about the implications here for more than a couple of seconds.

A poet needs his pen and paper. Someone needs to man the paper-mills and ink-factories, someone needs to work on logistics and planning issues related to that, infrastructure etc.

It's a completely meaningless statement.

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#24

Post by reincarnate0x14 »

NoBeardMarch wrote: post #16
reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #6

I'm happy this person found a way to live that's meaningful to him, but I grew up as a farmer. You're coming back to something we've known a long time. If a god is what let's you get there, then good, let god keep you whole. But this is what the classics of stoicism (in the literal sense of both) have been telling us the whole time. We make our own meaning, and money isn't it. Go and grow things. Raise things. Build…

It's honestly quite interesting to me how this presents. I mean: Yes, people should ultimately pursue some form of happiness, but for me that happiness is genuinely doing software engineering work, and I do not think we should demonize the 9-5 office-job. In my opinion it gets too much flack, and the "move to a farm"-dream becomes some kinds of utopic ideal, which I really do not believe it is. I have worked much hea…

If I can give you any advice as a likely older man to a younger man, no bias intended, happiness is fleeting. Look for fulfillment. I personally find religious apologies to be empty but if they get you to a good place, fuck it, I can't argue with everyone over methods. If your job is fulfilling, or enables you to do fulfilling things in your other time, there is no shame in that.

There is a visceral spiritualism to working with your hands, but if you can achieve that with coding, great! Live a life you would want if money didn't matter.

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#25

Post by ironbound »

NoBeardMarch wrote: post #16
reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #6

I'm happy this person found a way to live that's meaningful to him, but I grew up as a farmer. You're coming back to something we've known a long time. If a god is what let's you get there, then good, let god keep you whole. But this is what the classics of stoicism (in the literal sense of both) have been telling us the whole time. We make our own meaning, and money isn't it. Go and grow things. Raise things. Build…

It's honestly quite interesting to me how this presents. I mean: Yes, people should ultimately pursue some form of happiness, but for me that happiness is genuinely doing software engineering work, and I do not think we should demonize the 9-5 office-job. In my opinion it gets too much flack, and the "move to a farm"-dream becomes some kinds of utopic ideal, which I really do not believe it is. I have worked much hea…

Same I think you can get purpose from other areas with basing your survival on it. It's very easy to have a hands on hobby like knitting, car mechanic's, growing tomatoes if there's a problem of being "disconnected from the world"

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#26

Post by ianbutler »

mentalgear wrote: post #13

> All that remained was to decide what to do with my life. From a spiritual perspective, there are only two career paths one can take: farmer or artisan. Anything else unavoidably involves doing evil or is essentially meaningless. Seems shocking at first, but the more you think about what our SWE works does, for whom, and who benefits the most of it ... IMO it makes sense.

It sounds more like a depression and stress brained reduction to me. Tends to put you in a very binary and extreme thinking mode in my lived experience.

Also I inherently disagree with the idea of meaninglessness the author presents there. Meaning is relative to man, man makes meaning. There is no objective meaning and so you have to choose it for yourself.

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#27

Post by n4r9 »

Nition wrote: post #8

> From a spiritual perspective, there are only two career paths one can take: farmer or artisan. Anything else unavoidably involves doing evil or is essentially meaningless. I thought this was a beautiful statement; something to really help us think about what we're trying to do here on Earth. But personally I would add Artist to this. Painter, sculptor, musician, writer, poet, and so on. We need those too. Edit: As…

It strikes me as an over-simplification. What about doctors, therapists, firefighters, teachers, bricklayers, scientists etc... ?

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#28

Post by dejv »

I also taken up farming in 2013 after 10 years of working on startups (as founder and early engineer, with no success at all). I was about to move back to village I was born at and escaped as fast as I could at the age 15.

I started natural winery at the ripe time when it first started to be popular and managed to miss the wave. It was a great first year after many years of tech grind in big tech hubs. I was waking up late, went for walk where I probably met friend or two who had nothing much to do, so we drink a coffee and talked a bit. Waiting for summer heat to be over, then work in the vineyard till the sun went down and then go to the local pub for beer or four.

I guess it sounds like it was vacation or playing farmer. And that is what it was, really. I did that for couple of years and then moved back to the nearby city and rejoined the startup grind. What I got from this experience is that there are seasons in life and it is great to have an optionality to play with different modes of life. The tech industry will always be there.

I am in my 40s now. Found a wife, got a mortgage and couple of kids. I kept the farm and treated it as a weekend hobby, rented out most of the land and I am slowly building the infrastructure I missed when I started. One day the kids will be old enough and tech will no longer excite me. The season will change, I move back, wake up late, meet with local friends who have nothing much to do during summer heat, work the vineyards and then hit pub when the sun went down.

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#29

Post by satvikpendem »

spapas82 wrote: post #9

Is this actually a business that can make money? My family owns around 1000 olive oil trees in Greece that produce eatable olives and extra virgin olive oil. The thing is that we always sell the product in intermediates that would pack it up and sell it in a much higher price. I don't know of any small producer that sells the product directly to the consumer. This seems like a very big investment and not really susta…

I sell onions on the Internet [0] is a well known example I've seen, whose author sells Vidalia onions direct to consumers. Another one I know are Miami Fruit [1]. There are no doubt countless examples, but more than software engineering, you need good marketing. If you made an ecommerce site via Shopify (do not code this yourself, it's a waste of time) or wrote a similar article, and posted about them, I'm sure people would find you and order. Personally I'd be interested in buying directly from your farm, let me know how that is possible even if it's a low tech solution for now.

Something you might be able to code is plugins for these ecommerce sites, if it makes sense for your business. I also used to run a loose leaf tea ecommerce store via Shopify but I imported from producers like your family as you describe, and I wrote one for dynamic pricing for buying from various countries due to their purchasing power being less. It'd calculate their power as well as my thresholds and figure out optimal prices where more people could buy it but wasn't screwing me over too.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46385308, https://www.vidaliaonions.com/

[1] https://miamifruit.org/

Re: Have Taken Up Farming

#30

Post by anonymous908213 »

NoBeardMarch wrote: post #23
Nition wrote: post #8

> From a spiritual perspective, there are only two career paths one can take: farmer or artisan. Anything else unavoidably involves doing evil or is essentially meaningless. I thought this was a beautiful statement; something to really help us think about what we're trying to do here on Earth. But personally I would add Artist to this. Painter, sculptor, musician, writer, poet, and so on. We need those too. Edit: As…

I disagree, it is not significant at all if you think about the implications here for more than a couple of seconds. A poet needs his pen and paper. Someone needs to man the paper-mills and ink-factories, someone needs to work on logistics and planning issues related to that, infrastructure etc. It's a completely meaningless statement.

Now, now, there's some meaning to it. The meaning is that stating it allows the author to feel morally superior to the rest of us "liars, thieves, fornicators, murderers, and cheats".
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