The 10K Campaign

George has been pacing aimlessly ever since hanging up the phone. The look of sheer horror on Marcy’s face when he told her he accepted the challenge to run for president has not left his mind. Pacing back and forth, he walks into his study and shuts the door. Hovered over his desk, he wonders if he made the right decision as the glutton of self-doubt seeps into every pore of his mind. Would the country accept or ostracize him? Would they take cheap shots, as some people have throughout his career, such as when his neighbors sneered about the god-complex farmer who thought he was too good to join the government-subsidized farming consortium? Or would they feature him on the cover of Rolling Stone with heavenly rays basking on his shoulder? What would a political campaign do to his family? And speaking of, what the heck does he know about politics?

Tired already of the mental paralysis, George rips off a piece of paper and writes down his fears on a piece of paper and orders them #1 – 10. “Help me do what’s right,” he fervently prays. And so often in his life when faced with a conflict or decision unable to make by himself George pulls out his trusty yellow note-pad from his desk and jots down four letters: WWGD? Stuffing the note in his back pocket, George
emerges from the study and heads straight for the back door.

“Where are you going?” Marcy asks, but she already knows the answer.

Like the Beatle’s song, George has a place where he goes when he feels low or blue, a place that offers him shade from the sometimes harsh glare of daily realities and reminds him of the commanding presence of the moment. And he opens the gate to the lush backyard garden of Davisson Farms and walks to the moonlit shadows of Eudaimonia Grove. In its rich soil George has planted apple trees, figs, and Concord grapes; in its soil, George has also planted his hopes and dreams, and amongst the fruits of his labor, he often weighs his conscience, asking himself routinely, “Am I doing what is right? Am I planting the seeds of happiness?”

Fifteen years ago, George grappled with these questions, troubled with a heavy-heart and a clouded mind. An offer to join a government-subsidized consortium of farmers with the likely consequence of financial windfall for his family and future generations would have meant the end of farming for the joy of being a farmer and selling his ‘virtues,’ i.e. his crops, all thirteen named after Benjamin Franklin’s virtues for self-betterment. Commercial success was the devil on his shoulder.

When George walked out the back gate at that time, the grove was a simple plot of land that extended into the boundaries of his wife’s tomato garden. Having made his decision, George planted a garden of good food and good thoughts that summer, naming it Eudaimonia Grove. Translation: "Having a good guardian spirit." George based it on a mix of ancient Egyptian and Greek moral philosophies of what constitutes the core of happiness and living a good life versus a life in pursuit of pleasure. Aristotle argued that a life well lived was one in which every action or purpose aims at some good, which equalizes both the acts of good living and the end result; Eudaimonia contains the essence that happiness is achieved by way of a life well-lived both in pursuit and as an end in and of itself.

And so George spends several moments, spanning almost a full hour, amongst the fragrance of grapes, figs and apples, having asked and received the answer to whether or not he is capable of running a political campaign, let alone one on a budget of ten thousand dollars, without sacrificing his family, virtues or Eudaimonia. He returns to the farm-house with clarity, peace of mind and one simple request for Marcy.

“Honey, call the kids.”