What is Living Off Grid Really Like?

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are.

How you live has less to do with where you are than who you are.

For some, this is an uncomfortable truth.

Like it or not, your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. If your world is swirling in chaos, you’re surrounded by half-completed projects, and you feel as if you’re always running to catch up, moving off grid isn’t going to help you. Your life will just be a big mess outdoors.

No matter where you go, there you are.

What Is National Culture?

This concept of Culture is what makes immigration such a problem. I wasn’t even going to get political, but it’s a relevant point.

Land doesn’t make a Nation anymore than an empty vehicle can make a journey. The people and their acceptable norms are the foundation that shape a Nation.

If you’ve ever been to Japan, you’ve certainly noticed how very clean it is. You can leave your bicycle with packages on the sidewalk while you go into a store and when you come out, everything is still there, untouched! It’s a beautiful culture of respect.

On the flip side, try doing that in Chicago.

Now imagine if you were to move all the people of Japan to Chicago and all the people of Chicago to Japan - what do you think would happen?

After awhile, Chicago would start to be beautiful again and Japan would fall apart. A nation is not about the land, but the people.

Of course, there are always exceptions. Some Japanese steal. Plenty of people in Chicago are honest. “Culture”, however, is painted in broad strokes. “Culture” is not shaped by the exceptions.

I don’t mean to pick on Chicago, specifically, but you get the point. Use another nation, if you like - Haiti, maybe? El Salvador? What would be the fate of Japan, the landmass, if handed over to a different culture?

And what is our fate, in the United States of America?

Not so united anymore.

Our nation is falling apart. Our culture is being dismembered. It’s disintegrating. But before you point the finger solely at immigrants or politicians, I urge you to take a look in the mirror.

Behind the Platitudes, What is Our Culture Really Like?

That fabulously exceptional “American culture” we’re all bemoaning the loss of wasn’t being used much anyway.

The fact is, We the People bear very little resemblance to our much celebrated “founding fathers” in any way. If you examine the daily habits of men like Adams, Jefferson or Hamilton, you’ll find that they centered their days around education and self-development.

Were they perfect models of equality and liberty by today’s standards? Of course not. But we can’t say we want to return to the idealistic foundation they laid without also emulating (somewhat) their personal credos.

I guarantee, none of these men spent their weekends watching football.

Many of our “founding fathers” were self-taught and all of them were well read. They were deep thinkers who founded a nation which, in its current state, discourages thinking.

From usconstitution.net:

John Adams stated, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

George Washington echoed this, remarking, "Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."

Thomas Jefferson wrote, "No government can continue good but under the people's control; and … their minds are to be informed by education what is right and wrong; to be encouraged in virtuous habits and deterred from vice."

Is it any wonder we find ourselves in this dire situation?

People with weak morals cannot govern themselves because when “anything goes”, everything good goes out the window. We, as a nation, have let it come to this through our laziness and apathy.

For example, do you still know how to spell or do you rely on auto-correct? So many don’t even bother with punctuation anymore. Can you do basic math without a calculator phone? Can you read a physical map? Can you count change? Parallel park or cook well? Have you exercised your mind lately?

The fundamentals of independence were let go a long time ago in favor of faster, easier, and cheaper.

And here we are. A nation of stoners.

Believe it or not, those basic skills are foundational aspects of culture. They represent Language, Arithmetic, Economy, and Nutrition. Everything positive about “our culture” was built from a deep understanding and appreciation of those classical building blocks.

Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, our society moved up through the basic levels of physiological and safety needs with help and guidance from those founding fathers we love to quote. We’re enjoying the upper tiers on their shoulders, but what have we added to the pyramid?

We benefit from living within the upper tiers and we have the ability to pursue self-actualization, but do we?

Or do we just scroll Facebook instead?

For decades, we’ve taken our comforts for granted and allowed the building blocks on which they are founded to deteriorate and, with them, our virtue has fallen.

We’ve replaced real with imitation. We’ve exchanged natural food for fast food. Real communication with emojis. Real wealth with fiat currency.

We haven’t embraced the core aspects of independence and self-sufficiency for a very long time as a society, and now we’re surprised and alarmed that our culture is in danger?

As the saying goes, Use it or lose it.

So what does all this have to do with living off grid?

John and I moved off grid to get away from the inevitable collapse that comes when a society turns it’s back on virtue and morality. We’ve studied history.

Specifically, we gave up on “American culture” completely several years ago when it became undeniably apparent that the sanctity of our own bodies wasn’t even respected. That’s about as basic as you can get. For us, that was the red line - the canary in the coal mine.

When the government and our employers threatened to take our livelihoods unless we went against our own values, we decided it was time to remove ourselves, our talents, and our skills from this society.

In effect, we Shrugged.

Should we have stayed and tried to fight for our cause? As a small cog in an impersonal machine, your resistance makes little difference - especially when you find yourself alone. Sometimes the best you can do is leave the situation and make a new plan.

And we did.

Kind of like dealing with a narcissist: The only way to win is not to play.

I like to think that if more people with skills and wisdom were to withdraw from this society of debauchery, the wheels of the clown car would fall off more quickly and we could end this nonsense in my lifetime.

I guess I’m a dreamer.

So, What Does Living Off Grid Look Like?

Well, it depends on the individual. Like I mentioned, no matter where you go, there you are.

In 2020, we moved to a remote patch of land and we’re endeavoring to make it our own. Here, we’re preserving a bit of what we value as far away as we can from people who value cheaper, easier and faster over Quality of Life.

Our home isn’t perfect, because neither are we, but it reflects what we value.

People never fail to create the environment which reflects their inner world. It has nothing to do with race or money. It has everything to do with virtue.

There are other people out here on the mountain who also live off grid and their lives look a lot different from ours. Some have very little, but they’re trying hard. Hopefully, they will persist. Others have very little, but they always seem to have enough money for their vices… Our harsh winters usually flush these people out.

Out here, lessons can be painful and a lack of planning can be fatal. Here, a person’s values can be the difference between life and death. I’m not being melodramatic. Living in town provides a cushion for stupidity that just doesn’t exist out here.

-30F degrees doesn’t care that you intended to get firewood.

In closing, this month we’re celebrating FOUR YEARS on the farm and sharing all the major projects we’ve completed since 2020!

If you really want to see what Off Grid Living looks like for us, here you go!

Be well and make good choices.