Till Your Own Garden

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My readers may have noticed a lot of guest posts on the blog lately. Here’s why.

After nearly hosting the blog for over ten years and writing almost 1500 posts you sometimes need a break. In addition, one should only write when they have something new to say and often I simply don’t.

Another reason is its summer in Seattle. Now this isn’t the summer many people experience—the 15 day forecast calls for highs in the 60s and 70s Fahrenheit—but when I see the sun shining after a cloudy winter I’m like a little kid—I want to be outside! I take long walks, often 5 or 6 miles almost every day and try to fight sarcopenia by mild workouts at the gym.

I keep up with the news, reading the NY Times, Washington Post, Salon, Slate, Vox, and a few other news sources daily. As usual I’m terrified of the possibility of fascism coming to America (which is a real possibility) but I try not to dwell on it. I don’t bury my head in the sand but I recognize my limited ability to effect world affairs.

Here I’m reminded on Voltaire’s counsel to “till your own garden.” What Voltaire meant was that we should keep a good distance between ourselves and the world for too close an interest in politics or public opinion causes aggravation and danger. Now the flipside of this is that keeping a distance from politics doesn’t mean it will keep a distance from you—you can’t till your garden if the regime under which you live becomes too regressive and authoritarian.

For me employing Voltaire’s implies loving my wife and children and grandchildren as best I can, eating a whole food plant based diet, getting enough sleep, moving my body, and improving my mind. There are many weeds in my garden, but I keep trying to pull them out.