A ‘Builders Bootcamp’ Draws on Wisdom of the Freedom Movement

If you want to be the master of your own keep, you’ll have to step away from the crowd.

Reader Contribution by Jo deVries
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by Gerry Thomasen
A cob home at Hollyhock displays artful details.

There are many hurdles to overcome if you’re wanting to escape to the country to live out the rest of your years — but most of them aren’t real. There are no benefits to worrying, only stress, and stress can be avoided.

If you moved only five rocks each day, imagine what a month’s worth of work would look like. If five people moved five rocks a day, a small stone cottage could be built in a summer.  I’ve seen barns and churches go up in a weekend. When people work together operating effectively as ants, monumental tasks can be accomplished. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” Aristotle (misquote, but a good one).

Draw on Old Wisdom to Inform Your Modern Self-Sufficiency Journey

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau received permission from his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson to use a piece of land, where he then built a small cabin from recycled wood and moved in on the Fourth of July. That was an independent, truth-seeking soul, working with a kindred spirit to enrich his life and nurture his relationship with dear Mother Earth.

The two years Thoreau spent at Walden Pond were possibly the best years of his young life. He died at age 44. Some speculate it was working in his father’s pencil factory that weakened his lungs. Our lives are short and priceless, yet the best years are often sold to the highest bidder. Or stolen by an overbearing bully.

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