I’m just now reading about Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his latest grab of the company behind the ‘Oculus Rift’– a virtual reality headset that allows one to “enter a completely immersive computer generated environment” he says. Ah, the questions…
Now, Iʼve endured and even supported all this video game mambo jambo with my kids, but have often worried about the what seems to me to be more than ample time they have spent in their rooms wailing away at zombies, foreign nationals, and the KGB … vs being outside or reading or doing just about anything thatʼs actually real … you know, really participating in real life.
Iʼve also been dragged into in the growing onslaught of ʻsocial mediaʼ, kicking and screaming I should add … mainly when we were more heavily involved with the music scene because all the mentors and publicists said we must use the social sites to promote what we were doing … but this sort of thing could not possibly be more ʻnot meʼ. You may find this a bit surprising if youʼve endured some of my blogs, but the last thing I am is a ʻchattyʼ person … that feels that it is absolutely necessary to share with the world my every thought, predicament, and ambition. Nor do I want the world to know where I am and what Iʼm doing 24/7. What’s wrong with me? Perhaps only old relics like me like their privacy …
So, back to Zuckerberg and his growing Facebook empire … what kind of person wants to “enter a completely immersive computer generated environment”? What’s wrong with the actual environment all around us?
Now I can understand the need for a break from reality from time to time … but being a farmer, I rarely get one … except with an occasional movie, good book, or Zackʼs baseball games – which are very ʻrealʼ for him, and all of us. Zack works hard at his game every day; a game that actually takes place outside on a real field with real players, real coaches, and here in western Washington … real rain.
Maybe, to give all of us a diversion from the daily grind, Iʼll gather up my little Berkshire family and weʼll go to Hawaii or Disneyland for the holidays … mmm … if Broadway, Bridger, Backwhen, Cathy, Mato, Joan, Norma Jean, Jett, Shiloh, Amy, Miss Pig and Suzie took on Disneyland – that would certainly be a break from reality … and for a lot of people and pigs! And a good story … “Wilderness Farms goes to the Magical Kingdom” … But the escapade would probably be reduced to fodder for another video game where our beloved Berks would be dispatched like zombies …
Our little farm is a real farm. You can actually scratch the ears of our Berkshires and get a kind and thankful response. You can carry buckets of water and grow real muscles … which is great for our baseball fanatic son Zack, who is, what can I say … ʻfarmer strongʼ. You can toss feed to all manner of pigs and hogs and finally quiet the masses … a calming silence you just have to experience to appreciate. You can build fences in ways that fit in with the farm landscape … giving plenty of consideration to the black-tail deer and red-headed woodpeckers. And now that spring is here … you can hear multiple frog choirs going off … competing with the hog harmonies at supper time. When it rains it gets muddy … trees can come down when the wind blows … and when the sun finally appears hogs and man just stand in it and take it in with a level of thankfulness that canʼt be surpassed here on the farm.
A farm life is an adventurous life. When you think youʼve seen everything something new happens. Itʼs hard. Itʼs fun. Itʼs rewarding. Weʼre always tired. We can rejoice every day in the progress weʼve made and fret about all that still needs to be done. Itʼs actual reality.
Thatʼs it for now … now Iʼm going to post this on Facebook.