46, 47

Somewhere in the development of the human species we learned to use tools. There is a great scene in the move 2001: A Space Odyssey that imagines the moment when our primordial ancestors learned to use a hammer. In my development as a farmer on Grace Farms, I have somehow regressed to just before the point in time when human beings learned to use tools. In trying to authentically develop a place where food can be grown, my enthusiasm for avoiding contamination of any kind created a sort of blindness to my own stupidity in how I am accomplishing simple tasks. A good friend of mine – who works with me on the farm – illustrated this by showing how a project that had taken me 9 hours could be completed in 30 minutes. What felt virtuous just minutes before his tutorial on using tools – immediately became evidence of my stubborn habit of taking the long, hard way to learning my lessons.