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In his excellent book "The Unsettling of America", Wendell Berry notes that the kind of knowledge acquired through farming is not specialized, but it is specific. The farmer becomes intimately acquainted with his land: he recognizes the hills and troughs, is familiar with the soil, understands how water flows, realizes how nutrients disperse. The sum of this knowledge helps him accurately predict how his crops will grow and how best to care for his livestock.
There are some general concepts that can be gleaned from this work, but Berry cautions that no generalized procedures will apply equally to all farmland, or even to any given two fields. Only direct, hands-on experience with the earth gives the kind of intuition needed to make full use of land's power.
I've experienced this in our own garden. Many parts of the soil are fertile and sustain plant life well, but a few small patches are barren. I can see where the lines of demarcation are, and I know where I need to fertilize. The particular layouts of our plants help to direct runoff, and I can use that to tell how to water the garden most efficiently. I've even begun to learn how to direct the growth of plants to help maximize sunlight for all of them.
In modern society, we have a strong tendency to look for generalizations and apply them to as many situations as possible. But this is not appropriate in many cases, and I'd argue that it's much less useful an exercise as it might seem. For example, when I was single, I wanted to make myself as appealing to any woman as possible, but now that I'm married, the only woman I really try to understand and pursue is my wife. There are several fundamental parts to being a loving and supportive person, but she is the sum of a unique set of traits and experiences, and several concepts that are helpful in general may not be helpful for her. My commitment to her as her husband is to care specifically for her as much as I can, and how I do it is not something I can really generalize.
General principles are a helpful place to start, but that's all they are: bases on which a sustainable and useful structures are built. The specifics of any given situation or circumstance must dictate how those principles evolve and adapt. The specific people and events in your life dictate how you can be your best self, regardless of what baselines you start with.
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[Last updated: 2024-08-15]