The farther we can see, the more time there is to react.
the reactionary gap is the time you have between identifying a threat and reacting to it. James Hom, Distance Learning: The Concept of Maai
This is a technical term used in defensive training throughout the arts. It seems fair to usurp the term here if somehow useful. Of the many ways to express the same sentiment, reactionary gap covers a lot of ground (and it sounds cool if you’re alpha).
An approaching storm can be a threat, an impending mortgage payment, tax payments, important events, objective hazards of all sorts; we really don’t need reminding of threats.
Coping mechanisms can be helpful.
What does this have to do with farming? Everything here has to do with farming, more specifically agriculture. Works Farm is actively engaged in agriculture and the writer involves himself in agricultural pursuits every day.
If you don’t hear it, see it or smell it coming… Steve Tarani from Controlling the Reactionary Gap
Growing up among dangerous animals (and sometimes dangerous people) is good preparation for natural threats and gives value to easy to remember terms. Getting punched, kicked, dog bit, rammed by large animals, shot at and missed, pissed at and hit all over, teaches. Action is sometimes the appropriate course; reaction is sometimes a good thing and there is no downside to having time to react.
The Reactionary Gap is well worth investigating regardless of your political views; it could save your life or that of another’s one day. There is no place here for politics simply because agriculture transcends politics (an objective hazard).
Part of WORKS philosophy is to do no harm while at the same time acknowledging obvious threats and defending against them. Farming can be dangerous, so painting a picture of rainbows and limitless bliss would not only be unrealistic, but irresponsible.
We are intrinsically connected to agriculture and our survival means we are inseparable from it. If we didn’t need it, it wouldn’t be.
Yet history has shown repeated efforts to wage war on farmers relentlessly everywhere, always. The curious idea is what happens when the well-meaning folks get their way by eradicating the peasantry, while still having to eat.
Joel Salatin (the lunatic farmer) has been known to point out it is the farmer who ought to be driving the fancy cars and living in a big house. But if we did that, where would that leave you?
If you have a notion we are living in critical times, that will mean we are there, here and now, and that every moment means The Reactionary Gap is closing. Farmers are not going to be able to save the world. Every one of us must be directly involved in agriculture because agriculture is the key to the long-term survival of humanity and life on Earth. If you think this a bold statement, ask yourself where we would be without it.
The wonderful thing about agriculture is you; you get to define it and your roll within it. Start with a list of things you can do that are agricultural pursuits; see the limitless possibilities even in your kitchen (the ultimate laboratory), your lawn, your clothing and all the other resources you depend upon. It only takes a minor change in perspective to make a major change in our realities. Folks, this ain’t hard to do!
By thinking, talking, acting and reacting more and more Agrarian, we become more and more Agrarian.
You don’t have to be a farmer to pursue agriculture; mowing grass can be an agricultural pursuit, washing dishes can be an agricultural pursuit (gray water management, biodegradable cleaners, soil amendment, food production, watershed health etc.).
These aren’t pie in the sky save the planet notions, this is viewing the world through the eyes of the Agrarian. Agriculture, one of only two industries (the other being mining) is the imbalance; overuse of extraction and underuse of regeneration.
Regeneration is a constant in nature and nature will always seek a balance.
The time to start thinking and acting like the Agrarian is now, because looking from here, all indicators point to the reactionary gap closing.
Just sayin’
Country Wit and Wisdom
There’s only one reason a rooster crows, it’s because he hears another rooster.
