Visioning exercise part 1
PERSONAL VISION EXERCISES
Identity: What is your identity? How does your identity influence your desire to be a farmer?
I don’t define myself by identity in the same way that many folks on the left do nowadays. Identities are explanations after the fact for the experience of self. So, I’ve always felt more relatedness to plants than to humans. As such, my ecosystem has felt more like my family than my family has in many ways. I suspect I relate to creating an ecosystem the way many people relate to creating a family: the land is my partner, together we build a diverse and robust web of entities such that they’ll live on beyond me. Orr maybe I relate to the land as a helpmate: I assist the land in producing bounty for folks.
Turns out this sense of relatedness to nonhumans is common in neurodiverse folks.
As a poor person I’m scared to farm because I want financial stability/security. I won’t get anything from a parent’s death so my retirement is on me.
As the daughter of someone whose parents were farm-adjacent and who left all that on purpose, I don’t have any ancestral ties or wisdom coming through my family.
I was read as a smart, pretty, skinny girl as a kid so I was not encouraged to do outdoor or manual labour things. I didn’t learn to fix things or that I could use my muscles to literally change my surroundings. I have a lot of learning to do because of my late start.
Values: What are your top values?
Security. Generosity. Curiosity. Flexibility. Growth.
Purpose: What is your personal purpose?
To maintain and support complexity, to seek knowledge and pass it on to those interested, to inspire interest, and to nourish. To connect through interest and joy.
Contribution: At a later time, when you reflect on your life, what do you hope to have contributed?
The feeling of abundance. Reverence in folks for this system we’re part of. The continuation of knowledge.
I want someone who thought they could never do this stuff to have stars in their eyes when they learn that they can.
Joy & Misery: What conditions bring you joy? What conditions make you miserable?
Financial instability and feeling like I’m producing a fungible product for financial gain both make me miserable. Identical routine makes me miserable. Lack of autonomy makes me miserable. High risk of waste makes me miserable.
Experimenting and discovering brings me joy. Generosity and gifting brings me joy. Teaching to interested folks brings me joy. Sharing brings me joy. The wheel of the seasons, relatively predictable but fluctuating each time, brings me joy. Planning brings me joy! Working towards a goal brings me joy. Periods of intense focus interleaved with periods of less work bring me joy. People who also love this stuff bring me joy. Working outside and using my muscles brings me joy, as does solving weird one-off problems with what’s to hand. Having the time to do something right brings me joy. Exploring complexity and unraveling it, but knowing the thing is too complex to fully understand, brings me joy. Learning brings me joy. Good systems - fitness of system, place, and goal - bring me joy.
Work: What is your ideal workplace?
My home land. People are there individually or small groups sporadically, and then there is time on my own to look deeply at what’s going on.
Time: How do you want to spend your time, and what is your ideal work-life balance?
I want to spend my time 65/35 inside/outside-ish. I want to always have a new project or iteration to be puzzling through. I’d like to have spikes of work intensity with long focused days interleaved with quiet low-demand days, but with a small level of constant demand.
I want to spend my time observing, measuring, and making something slightly different each time.
Identity: What is your identity? How does your identity influence your desire to be a farmer?
I don’t define myself by identity in the same way that many folks on the left do nowadays. Identities are explanations after the fact for the experience of self. So, I’ve always felt more relatedness to plants than to humans. As such, my ecosystem has felt more like my family than my family has in many ways. I suspect I relate to creating an ecosystem the way many people relate to creating a family: the land is my partner, together we build a diverse and robust web of entities such that they’ll live on beyond me. Orr maybe I relate to the land as a helpmate: I assist the land in producing bounty for folks.
Turns out this sense of relatedness to nonhumans is common in neurodiverse folks.
As a poor person I’m scared to farm because I want financial stability/security. I won’t get anything from a parent’s death so my retirement is on me.
As the daughter of someone whose parents were farm-adjacent and who left all that on purpose, I don’t have any ancestral ties or wisdom coming through my family.
I was read as a smart, pretty, skinny girl as a kid so I was not encouraged to do outdoor or manual labour things. I didn’t learn to fix things or that I could use my muscles to literally change my surroundings. I have a lot of learning to do because of my late start.
Values: What are your top values?
Security. Generosity. Curiosity. Flexibility. Growth.
Purpose: What is your personal purpose?
To maintain and support complexity, to seek knowledge and pass it on to those interested, to inspire interest, and to nourish. To connect through interest and joy.
Contribution: At a later time, when you reflect on your life, what do you hope to have contributed?
The feeling of abundance. Reverence in folks for this system we’re part of. The continuation of knowledge.
I want someone who thought they could never do this stuff to have stars in their eyes when they learn that they can.
Joy & Misery: What conditions bring you joy? What conditions make you miserable?
Financial instability and feeling like I’m producing a fungible product for financial gain both make me miserable. Identical routine makes me miserable. Lack of autonomy makes me miserable. High risk of waste makes me miserable.
Experimenting and discovering brings me joy. Generosity and gifting brings me joy. Teaching to interested folks brings me joy. Sharing brings me joy. The wheel of the seasons, relatively predictable but fluctuating each time, brings me joy. Planning brings me joy! Working towards a goal brings me joy. Periods of intense focus interleaved with periods of less work bring me joy. People who also love this stuff bring me joy. Working outside and using my muscles brings me joy, as does solving weird one-off problems with what’s to hand. Having the time to do something right brings me joy. Exploring complexity and unraveling it, but knowing the thing is too complex to fully understand, brings me joy. Learning brings me joy. Good systems - fitness of system, place, and goal - bring me joy.
Work: What is your ideal workplace?
My home land. People are there individually or small groups sporadically, and then there is time on my own to look deeply at what’s going on.
Time: How do you want to spend your time, and what is your ideal work-life balance?
I want to spend my time 65/35 inside/outside-ish. I want to always have a new project or iteration to be puzzling through. I’d like to have spikes of work intensity with long focused days interleaved with quiet low-demand days, but with a small level of constant demand.
I want to spend my time observing, measuring, and making something slightly different each time.