Perfunctory Preparedness — It's Ross Hammond

I spent most of the Thanksgiving Weekend - the Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend, at any rate - with my family. We had a few poultry-based dinners, spent some time with loved ones and the family dog… It was a weekend well spent. Which was especially important for me this year, as my professional life has been undergoing something of a tumultuous upheaval as people who earn triple what I do in a year argue that I simply cost too much. I spent much of the last week in something of a professional existential nightmare as I exchanged emails with people more powerful than I am arguing about wether or not I deserve the dignity of a job that both pays the bills and allows me to build something of a future for myself⁠. [1]

You know - Thanksgiving.

So while I was out of Toronto, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, I got to enjoy my yearly meditative practice of Stacking Firewood. Every year, my mother orders a couple of bush cords of firewood to get dumped at her place in the country, and I spend a handful of hours stacking it up under cover, or outdoors, wherever we have room.

Stacking firewood for the winter has an oddly satisfying mental effect, that I don’t totally know how to describe, but I will attempt to. To know that we have dry firewood - stacked, stored and ready for the snowy months ahead… it scratches the same itch in my brain that enjoys dehydrating, canning, and otherwise preserving food. Or the itch that saw me constructing a garden in this same idyllic countryside over the Covid Lockdowns. (I grew hella tomatoes, gang.) There’s something about being prepared that reaches into my brain and reminds me “No matter what else happens, you’re going to make it through to the new year.”

Is it an evolved response? Did the survival instincts of our ancestors in the days before electricity or pasteurization trickle down the evolutionary ladder to become this novelty for frail, metrosexual men? The waifish fellas who need to point at something and say “look - I was a Man today”?

Except now, the impulse of “preparing your family’s preserves to endure and survive the harsh winter” has become “doing a fuck tonne of meal prep, so that I can take a lunch to work and not pay $28 for a half-frozen wrap” in the 21st Century.

Preparedness speaks to that masculine problem-solving urge that I think a lot of us have⁠.[2] Preparedness lets me direct the energy and instinct that ex-partners have identified as a tendency of men to problem-solve when it is not needed. (Except I believe the term that they used for it was “that annoying guy thing⁠”[3].) Preparedness, obviously, is the solution to problems that have not yet cropped up. And there’s a fun moment you get to have by stacking firewood where you think “Outsmarted you again, Winter. Bring it on.”

My friend Antonis once described his ideal man to me with the following criteria. He said; “I need a man who looks like he can survive the winter.” I think he meant flannel-wearing, barrel-chested, bearded, and the ability to Ford a River. (Is that a difficult, masculine thing? It must have been, with nothing but your Oxen and your pathetic family on the Oregon Trail. He may only care about the first three things, now that I’m thinking about it.)

There’s an old, overused quote that is unfortunately both very good advice AND the kind of thing that you’d see framed on the wall of the office of the worst person you know.

“It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.”

There’s a lot of disagreement (in the brief Googling I’ve done on this quote) about who it comes from. Possibly Sun Tzu, possibly Bruce Lee. Whoever originally penned it, verbalized it, I am sorry to say that it may have become the “Live, Laugh, Love⁠” [4] for directionless millennial men who espouse wise quotes without absorbing any of their knowledge.

Simply put and interpreted, it’s about being prepared for the Worst in times of Plenty. The “make hay while the sun shines” kind of pablum. Stepping deeper, it’s also a quote about knowing that even when things are good, it’s better to know that you are prepared for adversity.

I’d take it one step even further, and say that the hidden wisdom here is about more than knowing how to handle oneself in times of adversity, but about - when given the choice - “do you garden, or do you war?”

…and the wiser choice is obviously to garden. Right? Sure, you have the capacity to fight, to inflict righteous harm unto others as they might inflict upon you… but isn’t gardening just… better? When the horns blare, and the banners are called, the notice goes out that all warriors must report to War immediately so that they can commence killing each other for the benefit of people who they don’t even know… Wouldn’t it be wiser for all of those warriors to simply say “no” and continue tending to their gardens?

To me, the act of war isn’t just stepping onto the battlefield. War, aggression, revenge… It only happens when you step out of your Garden at the command of another. If your Garden is your place of peace, and all you need to do is tend it by being both Warrior and Gardener… Where is the problem, really? If your Garden is threatened, of course you’ll defend it⁠.[5] But if you don’t let anyone tell you - as a Warrior - to go out there and fuck up anyone else’s Gardens… couldn’t we all just grow something wonderful together?

This one really got away from me, gang. I started out wanting to talk about stacking firewood and now I’m issuing a plea for peace and wisdom. And even as I’m writing, re-reading, and editing this, I’m second-guessing my initial interpretation.

“If this is what I’m thinking and writing down… does the extension of the garden metaphor become a plea for isolationism - or an argument against collectivism? Perhaps something ELSE I’m not reading⁠?[6]” Hopefully not; but I’m glad that the instinct to second-guess my thoughts exists, because I’d never trust someone who didn’t at least question their gut reaction. All of the people I’ve ever known who went in 100% on their first idea (“and no one else’s! Compromise is for chumps!⁠[7]”) have not been pleasant people to interact with.

What is my point? Did I have one? Is it as Basic as an emphasis on getting back to nature? Maybe in part. I think remembering, participating in, and embracing simplicity is more important than people would like you to believe. I’ve been mentally shooting from place to place with a lot of chaos in my life, lately. Torn between decisions, deadlines, and a colossal level of uncertainty, I’ve found it extremely helpful to just ruminate on simple things, ideas, and pleasures.

And strangely, it’s a neat little rebellious trick to do this. It doesn’t feel like it initially, but in a way, living simply and for yourself is a GREAT way to fuck up the plans of people who would much rather you sacrifice your life, labour, and time to a cause you do not care about. Rallying against the “constant grindset” by just existing peacefully is a surprisingly soft way to troll the people who WANT you sweating for them.

That’s an odd turn. Anyways, thanks for listening to me philosophize. I’m sure it was very low-level; but these are surface thoughts a lot of the time. I’ve been thinking a lot about how since the Pandemic, people have finally seen how unfair the world is⁠. And now, there are a great many powerful people trying to undo the work that was done to try and make this world fairer for more people. People who demand that the Warriors leave their gardens and fuck up the gardens of others. I worry that what steps we’ve managed to take are being undone, for the benefit of a few people who will never have to war OR garden. And I want more of us to be aware of how we are used and convinced that we’re making our own choices about it.

Never put in more work for someone else than you would put in for yourself. We are all worth more than that.

[1] Gotta love that paycheque-to-paycheque life.

[2] I’m going to be speaking in heteronormative terms here - but I should let you know that while of course this urge transcends gender, I (a man, technically speaking) can only write from my own experience as a cisgendered male, growing up with that pesky Y-Chromosome.

[3] Same disclosure as above - I can only speak for myself yada yada yada… If I may make an argument for the men in YOUR life, Dear Reader. We see something that annoys you - and we would ALSO like it to stop. That’s why we try to solve the things you bring to us. Gents, if I may offer some advice. I’ve started doing this thing where (as the momentum is building for a rant) I have started to ask “Is this something you want solutions for, or do you just want me to listen?” Works a treat. Plus listening is far easier than unsolicited problem-solving.

[4] This is far from the only quote that men tend to cling to - our L,L,L could comfortably be any vague and over-quoted bit of bite-sized wisdom you like, but this one is particularly egregious to me, personally.

[5] Incidentally, the Defence of a Garden is exactly the job of a Gardener. But let’s not confuse this already nebulous metaphor too much more.

[6] We’ve all seen how easy it is to make bad-faith arguments on The Internet. Could some Andrew-Tate-Minded Troglodyte claim that my words are in fact an argument for Fascism, while unknowingly being a Fascist himself? I am certain that he could. He wouldn’t have a great argument, but that hardly seems to matter in that world.

[7] See? Look how easy that was.