Dear Curiosity Journal,
Rufus and I fall into our familiar Tuesday rhythm. He’s harvesting in the field, I’m packing in the barn. My role includes culling, washing, weighing, bagging, bundling, and placing items in the box. I take veggies from the garden cart stage to consumer-ready. As I spray down the onions, I reflect on how these mundane preparatory steps have been removed from the lives of most. I wonder how many people reading this washed soil from something they ate today. I ponder how forgoing the tedious tasks of growing, rinsing, chopping, and cooking have changed us as consumers, as humans. I always find myself going back to Gandhi’s principle of bread labour – the concept that everyone labours physically for their food. He believed participating in bread labour was an act of non-violence and famously said, “Obedience to the law of bread labour will bring about a silent revolution in the structure of society”. This is a totally radical concept in our current economic reality, but if you’re curious about the controversial, here is further food for thought from Gandhi’s Law of Bread Labour;
“Let me not be misunderstood. I do not discount the value of intellectual labour, but no amount of it is any compensation for bodily labour which every one of us is born to give for the common good of all. It may be, often is, infinitely superior to bodily labour, but it never is or can be a substitute for it, even as intellectual food, though far superior to the grains we eat, never can be a substitute for them. Indeed, without the products of the earth, those of the intellect would be an impossibility. May not men earn their bread by intellectual labour? No. The needs of the body must be supplied by the body. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” perhaps applies here well. Mere mental, that is, intellectual labour is for the soul and is its own satisfaction. It should never demand payment. In the ideal state, doctors, lawyers and the like will work solely for the benefit of society, not for self. (H, 29-6-1935, p. 156) Intellectual work is important and has an undoubted place in the scheme of life. But what I insist is the necessity of physical labour. No man, I claim, ought to be free from that obligation. It will serve to improve even the quality of his intellectual output. (H, 23-2-1947, p. 36)
I know it’s radical. It’s a philosophy. He’s referring to “the ideal state”. It’s not for everyone. Don’t crucify me in the comments. It’s just another lens to look through, an opportunity to get curious about our connection to food, land, ourselves, and each other.
~Joy
