Urban... Homesteading?

You know, a thought just came to me. Given my proclivities of tinkering and amassing large amounts of knowledge from seemingly esoteric fields with no intention of being certified as a specialist in one way or another, it seems like homesteading might be the right type of lifestyle for me.

Work needs to be done on a homestead, and all work done on a homestead contributes to keeping the homestead alive and well. Work on a homestead requires different knowledge at different times, and there are a variety of projects of different durations and complexities with associated clearly defined goals that can be achieved. It threads the fine line between survival and death, but with a much larger safety margin than just heading out into the jungle to live. One does as much work as one needs to fulfil the comfort of living one wants, and thus have time to do other things (possibly of passion) without worrying if it can satisfy some future lust of capitalistic corporations who always want ``good fit'' labourers of all kinds without providing the training they want to ``improve their base line''.

A very charming thought. It will be tough, but it isn't something that humanity hasn't done before---that was the way of life before we turned into Heinlein's insects and overly-specialised ourselves. For the confused (with the emphasis being mine), Heinlein's words from Time Enough to Love:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I suppose the only tough part then is how to enact such a concept in an urban city the way SIN city is.

It's not like I can set up a farm for self-sustenance. Even the traditional farm areas in SIN city are getting their literal last land lease extension to get the hell out before they get bowled over by the new zoning. And farming for food is one of those things that actually need the land to do so, whether it is in the ``inefficient'' two-dimensional sprawl, or the energy-intensive technologically supported three-dimensional ``shelf''-type farms. And land... it's not easily available in SIN city, even if one had the capital to pay for it.

But I like that idea of homesteading; it gives me a direction to re-focus my thoughts about that I want to do in the future; I don't want to live for others (how many others do I have to live for now, given that almost everything that I used to cherish dearly have been taken away from me one by one?), but I definitely want to live for myself while being in God's good graces, and not take bullshit from other people.

Urban homesteading... let me ponder about this more. Till the next update.