Essays From West of 98: Seasonal Limits
Accepting our limitations is the first step towards true liberty and life within the seasons
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“Liberty, c. 1800/1820” unknown artist (National Gallery of Art)
Living within seasons is not as simple as merely announcing our desire to do so. Last week, I observed that adjusting life to a seasonal-based approach would require adjustments over time. I gave an example of matching our diet to fit with the seasonal availability of certain fruits and vegetables.
This topic brought me back to something I wrote about a year or so ago: the idea of “limits” within life. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he enshrined in our American ideal the notion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Over time, some people have chosen to make “liberty” synonymous with some sort of unfettered and unbridled life that exists without any limits. As I shared in that essay last year, that sort of life leads to the perils of greed, uncontrolled power, and harm to others. There’s an old saying that “freedom for the wolves means death for the sheep.”
This is not to suggest that we should seek out some sort of all-knowing human purveyor of limits and regulation. Any sort of human institution—church, government, business, you name it—is only as good as the people in charge and those limits are subject to human bias and other motives. But what about ourselves?
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard (a personal hero of mine in that he actually puts his money where his mouth is) has said that “freedom is the acceptance of responsibility.”1 That hits home with me. Appreciating the God-given right of liberty is a responsibility and it calls us to live in a manner that is positive and healthy for ourselves and those around us, lest we become one of those wolves whose freedom impacts the sheep for the worse.
Accepting that we are humans with limits runs contrary to some of our instincts, but it is vitally important. Not long after I started practicing law (and before I was married), I often stayed at my office until 10 or 11 pm or later. I was trying to “get things done” but I seemingly never finished my to-do list or emptied my email inbox. My dad pointed out to me that ultimately we’ll never get everything done and we have to be willing to do as much as we can, call it a day, and start fresh the next day. I have tried to improve on that over the years. Having a wife and children places a natural limit on things, because other responsibilities must be dealt with in their own time whether the office to-do list is finished or not.
It occurs to me that accepting limitations is an important aspect of living seasonally. If we truly use our seasonal instincts like our ancestors, it requires us to consider what we can and cannot do in life and when we can and cannot do it. A person can work outdoors until 9 pm in June and July (and it might be more pleasant than working at 3 pm), but he’s unlikely to have much success doing the same in December. We can be the most enthusiastic gardener on earth, with every guidebook and tool known to man, but we cannot and will not grow plants in the wrong season when the soil or the air temperature will not allow it.
It is difficult to live within limits and accept our responsibilities. Remember my newsletter last year about our “microwave” society where we want as much as possible, as fast as possible, as soon as possible? That’s our modern instinct. Our ancestors had a different instinct. They took life as it came to them. They lived within the limits placed on them by the seasons and by the responsibility placed on them as stewards. And by living within that manner, they might have truly understood the value of “liberty” better than a microwave society ever did.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the Rural Church and State and West of 98 podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found. Check out the West of 98 Bookstore with book lists for essential reads here.
I highly recommend Chouinard’s memoir/business book “Let My People Go Surfing": The Education of a Reluctant Businessman”. Chouinard’s personal politics are to the left of many of my readers (and myself), but he has a genuineness that is to be respected regardless of your own affiliations. He is willing to cost himself money in the name of the greater good (highlighted famously by his ad asking people to NOT buy Patagonia items on Black Friday) and frankly, the entire “do as I say, not as I do” political/celebrity/elite class should learn from him.