Satire: Clods of Wisdom by guest columnist Hu Dat Lin

Turtle Paradise is pleased to welcome as guest columnist the venerable Hu Dat Lin, who has agreed to share wisdom gained from decades of observation and interaction with the natural and unnatural worlds.

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Dear friends and fellow travelers in the Imperial Core and Second, Third, and Fourth Worlds. Dear slightly neurotic overthinkers who strive to do good. Dear frazzled introverts who know you are right, but can't get anyone to listen to you. Dear stumblers upon this piece, bruised by the highly manipulated virtual worlds of mainstream and social media, and battered by seemingly overdetermined events, and not even sure what 'overdetermined' means. I welcome you.

Let's get down to business. The vast majority of agricultural (and life) advice I come across is complicated. You need to learn many new skills and buy lots of stuff to be successful. Also you need to spend lots of money to hire someone to teach you the best ways. As we say in my native country, "This is bullshit." A little patience and thought will go a long way. In this column I'd like to examine a principle from permaculture that can help clarify our thinking and hone our decision-making skills. Putting it into practice is uncomplicated and low cost, and will offer big paybacks down the road. Before we begin let us consider the following statement:

In theory there is no difference between practice and theory. In practice there is.

You no doubt feel this to be true, even though you're not exactly sure what it means or who said it. No worries. Nobody else knows either. Here I will interpret it to mean that you should not listen to people on the internet who act like they know stuff, but appear to have no experience or real knowledge. As we say in my native province, "That's just book-larnin' or maybe Dunning-Kruger Effect."

Let's take a look at the principle, often stated thusly:

Use protracted and thoughtful observation rather than prolonged and thoughtless action.

This concept is common sense and probably the most important principle you will come across. Acting without it is like trying to prune an orchard with your bare hands: You will waste lots of time, and do damage that will take a long time to heal. This principle is like a clean and sharp tool in your hands if you take the time to pick it up.

Every time I sit down to write I find myself writing about this principle, explicitly or implicitly. The inability to use it is the main impediment to success in your garden and in your life. Most of us are thoroughly conditioned by modern life to want everything right now and to think we must take control immediately to achieve our goals. As we say in my home village, "We go about everything like killing snakes." This modus operandi is to be avoided, but how? It is not enough to simply tell readers to stop following it. Try this exercise:

1) Find some medium sized rocks and place them in an open, outdoor area. They should be small enough that you can pick them up, but large enough that you must exert yourself somewhat to move them. Buckets of soil or water, logs, cinder blocks, small children, or any appropriately sized objects may be substituted.

2) Place the items in a pile and choose a spot at least several meters away.

3) Move the items one at a time to the chosen spot. Once you have finished, move them all back again. Repeat several times.

4) Repeat each day until goal is achieved.

Yes, it really is that simple! By doing this exercise daily you will gain the ability to utilize the principle in question. Before you begin the exercise on the second day, ask yourself if you would like to continue to move your objects, or if you would prefer to sit and do nothing. If you choose the latter, congratulations! You are making swift progress and have moved on to Phase 2. During this phase, ask yourself this question before each session begins. You always have the option to choose either activity. You may also change your mind at any time and switch activities. This exercise is so effective that most practitioners move along rapidly.

Once you find yourself consistently able to choose the sitting option, do so for several months. To relieve boredom and stretch muscles, it is allowed for you to walk around or merely stand in place looking slowly back and forth. During this phase it is common for participants to have sudden urges to fell mature trees of unidentified species, hire locals with large machinery to dig earthworks, and buy expensive equipment with multiple functions. If this happens to you, do not, as we say in my home canton, "beat yourself up." Simply repeat Phase 1 of the exercise.

I often encounter scepticism about this exercise from beginners. This is to be expected because most of us have been conditioned to foresee difficult and convoluted solutions to all problems. Nothing could be further from the truth! The solutions are deceptively simple, and right in front of us. The problem is our inability to perceive them. The cure is the simple exercise described above.

For those who would remain unconvinced, please consider the photo below.

The machine on the left is a made from various materials mined, manufactured, molded, and assembled. It will cost at least $100 USD to purchase. To operate it you must also buy ground coffee packaged in a way that creates maximum waste. It is hard to clean and harder to repair. Despite these drawbacks, millions have been sold, though the coffee they make is, as we say in my local district, "pretty crappy." On the right is a simple device for the same purpose requiring only a slip of paper and loose ground coffee to make a "kick-ass cup of joe" (as we also say.)

Please think about these two devices when doing the exercise, going about your daily tasks, and when imagining the world you would like to create. I hope you have enjoyed the photos provided by Turtle Paradise. With a little luck I will be invited back to expound upon more principles. As we say in my native habitat, "See you in a while, crocodile."