Return to Face to Face - No Mic Included
Have deep conversations, with no camera and no mic.
Now that Perpend is back from the monastery, some people wonder why he hasn’t come back on the podcast. The answer may shock you - or, if you think about it, it is the most Perpend-thing you would expect.
The simple answer is that Perpend is David. He is no longer Perpend.
If asked, he would say, “Father has not blessed me to do that”.
That is the monk talking, although he is no longer a monk. Maybe it’s “once a monk, always a monk”, although I know that is certainly not the case for everyone who has gone that path and not persisted.
So we meet face to face. We have deep conversations. No microphone. We wouldn’t even think of it.
For him, everything is face to face (F2F). And that is where we all need to get back to.
How Goes the Struggle?
I look forward to those F2F meetups. Our conversations with deep dives that usually start with the question, “Why?”
We talk about life.
And our mainstay question that really opens it up: “How goes the struggle?”.
Instead of the usual greeting, David will ask, “How goes the struggle?”. Asking this gets beyond the mundane “How are you?” and the typical response of “Fine”.
Asking “How goes the struggle?” cuts through the noise. The person thinks about it and then gives a real answer. You then have a real conversation.
I have asked this question to someone not prepared, or not ready to have that conversation, and they look at it like a social violation. Almost like a slap in the face (yes, really). So ask it wisely, because it has that impact.
Perpend is no longer Perpend
The Thriving the Future podcast started in Covid, when Perpend and I were having conversations while driving to meetups when we had a small mutual assistance group. We had come out of the Jack Spirko/Survival Podcast vein, but in Covid it just seemed off; that didn’t seem to explain what was going on.
We started meeting weekly and just talking, with a Zoom mic off to the side. The best conversations were when Perpend threw a curve ball and talked about something that I didn’t think about beforehand.
One of our best was Ep. 17 - Clown World. People were talking about collapse, and bugging out. Family members were not prepping, but instead said, “If it gets bad I will come to your house.”
Online, the usual suspects were referring to people as zombies. Well, what do you do with zombies? Yes, we know. It was dehumanizing them and treating them like the Other.
When I went to Substack, I realized “Hey, I have a new audience”. I have almost 5 years of content now. I thought of reusing the old content, maybe doing clip shows. But, while I may point back to some of them, it doesn’t have the same effect. We are in the Long Dark after Covid. And Perpend is no longer Perpend.
The first 30 early podcast episodes were so Perpend. But then he decided that online homesteading wasn’t really homesteading. In many cases, it is performing. He was saying, “Maybe you (we) are just Larping” before anyone else.
He was looking for intentional community, but Libertarians in the Freedom Cell just weren’t it. They would rather argue about freedom. When things got tough, the people who didn’t want any laws on them sure made a bunch of rules.
Covid restrictions got better, or people capitulated cause “I gotta make my truck payment!”.
Perpend became Orthodox. He went to the monastery for 3+ years.
Perpend is no longer Perpend.
I told him this and he said, “Maybe Perpend is more Perpend than ever.”
Make your connections now
Are you having deep conversations like this? Return to face to face meetups, just talking and sharing life. No phones, because Big Brother is not invited.
Make your connections now, while you still have time.
I am a guy who grows chestnuts in Kansas, where we can go from 33 degrees to 96 in two days. Sometimes it feels like the odds are against me.
I write about building a real life instead of borrowing one.
Skills Over Stuff. Plant trees. Grow food. Build community.
Seeds (and trees) have a memory. They remember the place they came from - in Kansas it is those brutal winters, scorching summers, lack of rain for long periods of time.
My Midwest Memory trees are adapted to the Midwest Zones 5-7.
So where are your trees and seeds from? And do they know where they’re going?
