The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - e.95: The Farmers Aren't All Right pt II

Episode Date: March 9, 2018

Episode 92, about farmer mental health, really resonated with lots of listeners. This episode features a follow-up conversation with Javan Bernakevitch, a farmer and permaculturalist who emerged from his own depression with insights that he now shares with others.  Learn more about Javan at http://allpointsdesign.ca Also this episode: I talk about The Ruminant's brand new gift registry. 

And there's nothing wrong with this if this is the case, but this is pretty potentially interesting. Buried in what you just said, aren't you implying that not everyone should be a farmer? That's exactly what I'm implying. This is the part of the podcast where I tell you about what the podcast is about over the sounds of the theme music of the podcast. over the sounds of the theme music of the podcast. This is a podcast about farming and gardening and food and food politics and food security and other crap like that. You can find out more at theruminant.ca or I'm on Twitter at ruminantblog or you can email me editor at theruminant.ca and now we're nearly at the end of the intro to the podcast. Cue fade of the theme music.

Hey everyone, it's Jordan. So, episode two of 2018. Last episode, I told you I have some announcements that I'll roll out bit by bit. Here's the first one. Folks, I take donations now. My inclination was to do a long self-deprecating soliloquy about how I take donations now, but I'm not going to do that. Because A, long monologues are something we consciously avoid here at the Ruminant Podcast. And B, I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry to be making this announcement. And B, I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry to be making this announcement. I spend like hours producing each episode. And I'm finally ready to say that if you've enjoyed the show, please consider making a donation, which you can do at the ruminant.ca slash gift registry.

And like, hey, I've actually created an actual gift registry where you can help cover some of the expenses of the ruminant, both real and imagined. At the very least, you should check out the registry. Worth the trip, even if you decide to hold onto those dollars. All right, Maren, can we move it along here? Yes. Yes, we can. The ruminant.ca slash gift registry. And thanks. Today's episode is kind of a follow-up to an episode on mental health I co-produced with farmer Jessica Gale last year. That episode seemed to resonate with lots of people, and one of the many people who wrote me about it was Javin Bernakovich. Javin's biography is hard to do because his CV is varied and long and impressive, so I'll just do an inadequate job by saying that he is a permaculturalist and a holistic management educator who speaks and consults in farms all over the place. He's also a friend of mine and he lives not too far from here, just, I don't know, an hour's drive south,

something like that. You can find out more about him at allpointsdesign.ca. Anyway, Javin offered to come on the show to share some of his own hard-won thoughts on depression and mental health, which I couldn't pass up because he's a really thoughtful guy. That's all about, that's about all I need to say. Other than we actually recorded this conversation nearly a year ago, but as has been documented, your old friend Jojo kind of dropped the ball on that whole podcasting thing. So here we are. Okay, I hope you enjoy.

Javin, welcome to the Rubinant Podcast. Thanks for joining me. Oh my goodness, it's such a pleasure. I think I've listened to your podcast longer than most. I'm going to say what I said to you just off record before. You say that to all the podcasters, Javin. I know it. I just know it. You're a perennial charmer. So Javin, you reached out to me after I released the episode on farmer mental health because, well, you reached out to say you were glad I did the episode, but you also just kind of had a

specific reaction that you wanted to share. And I'm really interested to hear it because you usually have pretty interesting thoughts and ideas. So maybe you could start by describing how you reacted to that episode from a few episodes back on Farmer Mental Health on the Ruminant Podcast. Yeah, yeah, it'd be a pleasure. So mental health is something that I'm intimately familiar with. I spent 23 of my life, uh, 23 of my, the years of my life, uh, being, uh, chronically suicidally depressed. And I started a couple of businesses. I started a micro greens company during that time. And I got myself largely out of that depression with a number of, um, a number of health practitioners and a lot of personal work. And to that end, I started teaching permaculture and helping people understand

the land side of it. And I found at the end of these courses that people were frustrated. They didn't really know where to go. They didn't really know what to do. And so I started to create a program to help people parachute out of a PDC or permaculture design course into their lives. And in that, I created a couple of modules and a couple of frameworks out of all the work I had done to help them understand a few things. One, what their priorities were, how to inoculate themselves against the societal pressures they had when they came back, how to understand the sweet themselves against the societal pressures they had when they came back, how to understand the sweet spot where their gifts and their passions and the problems they

wanted to solve in the world were, and then three, how to take a look at limiting beliefs that were holding them back and be able to move forward in a way that made really good sense for them and also made them feel happier and lighter. So this got out over the last couple of years. And I was, I was pretty much purely working with, um, the students that had come to me and then, uh, Diego footer of permaculture voices. And now I think he's calling himself creative destruction or something else, but he started asking me about this. And so I started to speak about the mental mindset of, of our industry, of farming, of value-added products, of agricultural services, of farmers, of herders, of everybody who I love working with, because this is the niche. This is where I love to work. of farmers, of couples, of single designers, single farm managers, just a number of people who are dealing with mental health issues. And when I heard that wonderful podcast, I was just,

I was kind of gushing. I was like, all right, Jordan's getting into the meat of it. Because the technical side, largely there's places to turn to, but the mental side really hasn't come of age yet, not only in the greater conversation in Western civilization, but also, of course, in the smaller Venn diagram within that of farming. Right. So, Javin, I'm interested because you'll recall from that episode that I started with an interview with an academic who had kind of taken a survey of rates of mental health issues among farmers and found them to be significantly higher than a normal population. Does that square with your anecdotal experience? Because as you just sort of alluded to, you're a consultant who works with other farmers.

I mean, is this a problem in your view among farmers and related disciplines? I see it. I don't have a large enough sample from non-farmers to really see what that looks like besides my friends and my family and the folks I've spoken to in my own formal treatment and informal treatment. But the folks I get are in dire straits. So I'll give you a sense of this. A couple of months ago, six months ago now, seven months ago, I had two folks who were listening to a podcast I had done with Diego, and I'd spoken about how so many people who come to me say they want the farm. They're looking for the farm. They want the farm designed. They want to be able to execute their life through the farm.

Unfortunately, in that, there's some implicit quality of life statements. They want the farm designed. They want to be able to execute their life through the farm. Unfortunately, in that there's some implicit quality of life statements. They want to be close to the land. They want to be able to grow their own food. They want to have access to nutrient dense food. They want to have a sense of freedom, a sense of space. They want to have a non-toxic environment. Now, what's funny is that those two things are not mutually compatible sometimes. As many of my friends and many of my colleagues, many of my clients know, in making the farm, a lot of those quality of lives are sacrificed in making the farm. And so sometimes it starts right at the beginning where people don't realize that the idea of the farm as the goal can sometimes be that incision point of the mental health issue. And so I think part of it is we are a goal oriented culture. We're a meritocracy about

what we do is more important. And because farming is trending, and as you were speaking about at the end of the podcast, speaking with different farmers, and it sounds like the one farmer you spoke to who wasn't a big deal, it's a generational gap piece, which I found as well, that it is, it's a big issue because we focus upon what we do as being who we are. And creating a business or a farm is sometimes the largest thing that you can do with your life underneath a meritocracy and underneath a capitalistic meritocracy. So the folks that I speak to, one gentleman I spoke to about a year ago, he was a client. He had set out to make a farm. He hadn't quite done the pre-analysis to make sure that it was a good idea. He had not

completed his idea of the farm and he had assigned his sense of identity so much to the farm, which I think is typical of most farmers I speak to, that when the farm didn't do well, he crashed. And he crashed not for a couple of months, he crashed for a full year. When you're talking about being in a knowledge-based economy, somebody can write a paper, somebody can write an article, that article or paper may not do very well. And it's, it's not a huge issue depending on how much you place yourself on the metrics, how many page views, how many readership, how many, how much readership, how many articles that have been returned. But one of the reasons that people get into farming, the reason I got into it, the same reason I got into construction is that there's something tangible at the end of the day that you know you've done, you've either weeded, turned over the bed, you've

ordered or planted or sold. It's a very tangible, it's a very tangible occupation. And in that, again, with the overall programming, the overall arching society of you are what you do. You're not, you're not, you're not what you are, which inherently is the truth. And the falsehood there is you are what you do. When you're a farmer, it's what you build, do, and say. And so the social media account becomes an extension of that. The tangibility of the farm becomes an extension of that. The unweeded portion of the farm or the portion that you wouldn't show anybody.

Farmers have that as an extension of themselves because they say we are the farm or the portion that you wouldn't show anybody, farmers have that as an extension of themselves because they say, we are the farm. And because farming is so tangible, whatever tangibly is not up to the romanticized version of what they see of themselves or what they've adopted from others becomes that disparity. And that becomes the issue for anxiety, depression, racing thoughts, despair, all of the mental health issues you spoke about. Okay, so I want to come back to that, and I also then from there want to kind of jump to how you think we can get around that or solve that problem. But something you said a little bit earlier was kind of interesting to me. Were you suggesting earlier that you think this is somewhat new or more specifically generational?

Very much so. Very much so that some of the farmers I've spoken to that are sort of in the 40s, 50s and 60s range, definitely the 50s and the 60 year old farmers I've worked with. They definitely have mental health issues. No question about it, but it's not attached to their farm. There's something about those farmers I've worked with. And again, it's a small sample size. I'm talking, you know, two or three dozen. They have a sense of I do what I do. And if it works, it works. And normally it's about making sure they have enough for their family because they're a

generation that has family. We're not necessarily a generation that has invested in a nuclear family or a paired partnership family you know there's so many different iterations of partnership and cohabitation and just how to create a farm because of a lot of factors one of them being the cost of getting access to land or a farm that that generation has a different mentality and a different mindset and some of the farmers i've worked with who are that mindset, they just don't suffer from that same type of mental shift. It was a bit of what Jean Martin was talking about in,

you know, a good portion of those guys, they'll smoke a doobie, they'll have a couple of beers and they'll be like, well, that was the day, tomorrow is another day. Whereas our generation, the generation behind and before us, we were told a couple of things that were really bad advice in school and university you can be anything and do anything the generation before wasn't told that they were told work hard do good work you might get a bit of reward and you might be able to take some time off it was very different programming

and in that the way that they approach farming my experience, is very different from how the folks in our generation approach farming. See, let's dig into that a little bit, Javin. That's really interesting to me. That resonates with me, I have to say. So first of all, how old are you, Javin? So I'm 33. Okay, so I'm 35. So we are both, I'm about as old as you can be and still be classified a millennial.

And I think that's relevant to this conversation. You are squarely in the millennial generation. So I have a feeling I know what you're going to say, but you referenced a couple of things we were taught, perhaps erroneously in school, that have led to these problems for our generation. Can you be more specific? Oh, absolutely. I go through a process with clients where we actually do an itemization of beliefs to understand what their beliefs are. And I said this to a group of farmers where I said, you know, every one of you here has a belief about farming that isn't true for yourself or your context. There's something about that that isn't true. And it's true for us just as people.

So generationally, we have beliefs about our world or our life that may not inherently be true. I think one belief that a number of millennials carry is that it has to be fair or it should be fair. And the reality of life is it's not. It's not inherently a fair situation. If we're going to accept that we're biology and that we're from biology. Well, biology isn't inherently fair, be it in a predator-prey relationship, be it in a genetic inheritance relationship. None of that is inherently fair. And I think when we walk through life with a bit of it should be fair or it needs to be fair, we're setting ourselves up for a greater height of downfall.

When we walk around thinking life should be fair and I'm fair and I'm special, which I think is another really important thing that we were taught. And it's important because it's inherently and dramatically and disastrously untrue. We're unique, but we're not necessarily special. Each one of us is not inherently more special than the other. We're different to be sure, but we're not inherently special. And I think that was one of the major, um, uh, the major inheritances that have, hasn't served our generation, uh, as well as saying, great, you're unique and you should absolutely find out who you are, how you are, what you do, how you do it. Um, when we speak to our to our elders, we take a look at the sort of

cantankerous old man or the eccentric old woman. Of course, these are stereotypes and inherently stereotypes are false. But most of those people have crafted a life that is specific to them. They rise when they want, they go to bed when they want, they do the things they want to do when they want to do them. I think that is something that millennials, myself included, we don't necessarily look after ourselves in the way that is important. I think we look after ourselves a way that is very superficial. All right. So you've just, I mean, if I could summarize, it sounds like, I mean, it sounds like what

you're suggesting is, and I think we can both acknowledge we're generalizing to some extent, right? This doesn't apply to every single member of our generation by a long shot. But you're suggesting that we've grown up as a generation of people who expect things to be fair and who have, we've been told over and over that we're special. And then when we realize reality is not like that, it can be a fairly devastating. If I think, I think what you've done, Javin is just very eloquently explain why I've been so devastated about my muffin top. I'm guessing these aren't coming out of the oven. No, not the ones coming out of the oven, the one hanging over my, my waistband. So you're going to right away. You've already helped me. You've already helped me. I think I'm going to be able to move past that

finally, finally. So, okay. What about, Javin, do you have any opinion? I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, so I'll just use, I'll put them in my mouth. I would suggest that as a generation, we were praised a lot and we were told we could do whatever we wanted um and so for me what that meant uh is is growing up there i hit a point and it kind of came when i got into farming where and just as this is getting back to what you were saying earlier um you know things things didn't things didn't go things didn't go, things don't go well on a farm, right? There's lots of things that go wrong.

And, and earlier on that, that was really hard to take. And I, I, I believe it was even harder to take because I was raised to believe that I, you know, I just be awesome at, at everything I do. I, I received a lot of too easy praise, including just all the A straight A's I got through school, which in retrospect, I don't think I deserved. And then in addition, I was told I could do anything, which also on the farm, you learn really quickly, well, you can't do everything and you can't be good at everything. You know, does my experience resonate with you at all in terms of, in terms of perhaps, um, experiences we could apply to our generation or, or, or not? It not only, uh, resonates and is very accurate for me. It's accurate of every demographic. And I, and I

mean this, this isn't a generalization, but every client that has been in our demographic. It is 100% true and it's worse the younger the client gets. So when I've been working with some 20 and 25 year olds, they have that, but to an nth degree, to a degree that I didn't even think was possible. And when you're steeped in social media, when you're steeped in the century of self, that's the result. That's the result. When you're steeped in blue participation ribbons, when you're steeped in you're great for showing up in a superficial way, that's the result. As opposed to a community way where everyone is valuable for being part of the community in a soulful way that takes a look at who you are and what you are. We're one of the first societies, Western civilization, and this is going back three or 400 years now. So this is not just indicative of the last 50 or what's millennials like 80, 82. This is indicative of the fact that

we don't seek out our gifts and we don't offer them to the world. That's not how our society is meant to be. And African societies, the societies that I connected with in Africa and societies around the world have said, it's important to know what your gifts are and it's important to understand them and give them to the world. Pablo Picasso or William Shakespeare said this, you know, one or the other, the internet's not very sure about this, but the meaning of life is to find your gifts and the purpose is to give them away. That's it. It's not how you give them away. It's not, if you give them away, it's, it's just finding them and giving them away. Well, if you're told you can be and do everything, then you go out

and you try and be and do everything. What a, um, what a neutering effect to the vigor and potential that one has to try and be and do everything out there instead of being lucky enough to end up where somebody should be, where somebody should end up. And, but Javin, isn't that, I mean,

and there's nothing wrong with this if this is the case, but this is pretty potentially interesting buried in what you just said. Isn't just said, aren't you implying that not everyone should be a farmer? That's exactly what I'm implying. I've helped a number of farmers stop being farmers. I've helped a number of people who wanted to be farmers avoid farming, and I've helped a number of people who had no idea that they wanted to be farmers to become farmers. I'm working with two clients right now who are both in very successful, quote unquote, edible landscaping, permaculture design businesses who are incredibly unhappy. You know, we don't know who we are as individuals. And yet we constantly are looking out into the horizon as, as the,

as the incredible guest you had, and her name is escaping me, but she has people come up to her during the farm stand and say, Oh, it's, it must be so romantic. And we're always playing this, this romantic game in our head because we're meaning making monkeys and we'll make meaning out of anything. We'll, we'll take a look at farming and we'll say, oh, that's how farming looks. That's how it is. And we won't spend the time or the energy to go and have a shorthand experience, a woofing experience or a long-term experience. And so when I work with students, students who are corporate tax executives or construction

managers, and they say, oh, the farm life seems so amazing. There's two or three farms and they say, oh, the farm life seems so amazing. There's two or three farms and they know who they are. And I send them to them and I say, you will show up on time or I will not recommend you. And they go and they get their asses handed to them because they realize that farming is one of the most incredibly tough, demanding jobs on the planet. It was one of the reasons why our entire species was involved in it at some point, to some extent, or the gathering of food in some way. And there's a humbling experiencing that. And generally, we don't do that with something we're enamored with. We don't go

off and have the, you know, Mike Rau dirty jobs moment with it to really get a sense of it. We just idolize it, put all of our, our, our eggs into the mental basket and then dive deep and go, Oh, I shouldn't have done this. You're speaking my language, Javin. Um, I, uh, you know, I really think it is, it is a problem with many in our generation that, that we, we, you know, we kind of expect kudos just for showing up to a job that, you know, is, is, is conferring good on the, on the general public or whatever. Um, and that in, for when, when that's farming, it generally involves a pretty awful wake up call for a lot of people when, when they realize the reality of it, that, that,

that it's not enough just to show up. But interestingly, and I've talked about this in other contexts, I think this is what leads some of my colleagues to do things like give shitty customer service in their farming, like to develop a chip on their shoulder with regards to how they, you know, I guess I'm saying that because there are some of us who feel it's enough that we're just farming, like that, that we deserve to make a living just because we've chosen to farm, um, that, that, that, that a chip on the shoulder can develop over things like, you know, giving, giving your customers at market or giving your,

your chef customers like excellent bending over backwards to give them excellent customer service. And, and that's where we start to get into some of the meta tools and techniques that I use with clients, be they in the farming capacity or be they in just regular Joe and Jane capacity, that really helps. And I think the first concept is the idea of sovereignty. So the sovereign was the creator. They were handed down by God. We put a crown or a tiara on their head and they ruled us because they created our lives. And we've let go of being creators of our life, stepping out of the farm conversation, just into our lives in general. We've stepped out of being the creator. So instead of being

the creator, we're the created. And we're always waiting for someone to tell us how it is. So I'll give you an example. When we talk about being sovereign, when we talk about being the creator and the created of our lives, I like to think about a walled city-state of sort of Middle Earth, medieval times, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones. You kind of picture it. There's a walled city. There's the town inside. There's the castle or the keep.

You know, this is you. This is the walled city-state of Jordan, the walled city-state of picture it. There's a walled city. There's the town inside. There's the castle or the keep. You know, this is you. This is the walled city state of Jordan, the walled city state of Javan. And we tend not to be very discriminating about what comes in or what we go out to do within that walled city state. We tend to allow any idea that's out there to come into our head and to say, yes, this is a good idea for me. And when that happens, we give up our personal agency. We give it up to a number of people. And this can be summed up in a really simple heuristic of my business, your business, or nature's or God's business. And this one, particularly for farmers and for designers, rings very true because of those three spheres, you can only control one.

You can only control your business. You can't control what your clients do. You can't control what your customers do. You can't control what the farmer's market, you can't control what the government regulations are. You can't control what mother nature does. You can only focus on you. And that really helps people to start to understand what Anthony Hopkins put so eloquently and what other people think of me is none of my business. Right. Okay. So, um, just so I understand, I have a couple of follow-up questions. One, I guess is more of, of an example I want you to confirm, um, at a rudimentary level, you know, is my secret always beneath the surface fantasy that almost every other time I log into my email, I'm waiting for the email that's going to change my life, like some opportunity that just falls into my lap?

Is that sort of getting at what you're talking about? Like just wishing my life could be simpler by finally this magic email coming in saying, hey, guess what we have in store for you? And there it is. And then my problems are solved forever. Is that kind of what you're getting at? Hugely. I would say it's, it's a direct result of, of, of all the pieces we were talking about. Uh, in my work, I call it the climbers paradox because I used to be a rock climber and you climb up to a certain place and you can't really see the way forward. And instead of walking or running or pardon me, climbing forward, you just look over to other things and you think, if only I wish that place looks amazing.

And so similarly, you know, waiting for the inbox to open up to solve your problems, fantasizing about, as I did for a number of years, death or fire or dismemberment. So I could justify the way I felt with a physical reality. Now that's an extreme example, but it's the same conversation is that when we externalize our personal agency, that someone out there will improve our lives. Then we immediately put ourselves on the back foot instead of the forefoot. And inherently you don't open yourself up to the incredible innovation that you personally have as Jordan or as a number of farmers I've worked with of, well, that's

interesting. The way I do this is such and such, and no one else does it this way, but it works for me. And I think that's the genius of understanding who we are is that we break the mold of to be a farmer, you have to do this and that and this. And instead I want to create great food and give it to folks who will appreciate it. Well, if that's your overarching goal, if that's your overarching purpose, then all of a sudden, all the decisions to get there are highly malleable and life becomes really negotiable. Okay. So I also want to ask, I mean, it seems to me that, that, you know, you're also suggesting that maybe those that suffer from this problem, uh, and it, and you know, we, we, we talked before that perhaps there's a higher

proportion suffering in our generation, um, need to be more selfish. Do I have you right on that? Yeah. And I, I think this is where our generation gets very skittish about that word. We think of that word of being self-centered and, uh, or, or being overconfident or being, uh, incredibly callous to the needs of other others. And selfish doesn't, doesn't have that core selfish means, um, as so many religious, uh, adages and metaphors have, have taught us is about ensuring that your cup fills up first. Because when your cup is full, you have enough for others. If your cup isn't full, then it's really hard for you to give anything to others, else you're going to find yourself completely dry. Saying yes to everything, that is an effect of our generation always wanting to please,

always wanting to folks to give us a pat on the head and to being conditioned to having the pat on the head. When we go to bed at night and we realize I've got a pat on my head, but I don't have the work done. There's not money in the bank account. My health is poor or my fridge isn't full. And we realize that we've been given a pretty bum rap with how the education system and generally society as a whole programmed us or gave us a number of lines of programming, which in all fairness, we actually had to adopt. So part of this is the responsibility thing of, yeah, it was out there and it was out there in spades. And also we had to say yes to it. Javin, I want to go on a bit of a tangent for a few moments. Earlier, we were talking about, you know, getting into farming with, you know, unrealistic ideals or false expectations.

And you mentioned the late Dean Dak and how he set his own agenda for what he wanted to do with his life instead of living up to everyone's expectations. It had me thinking about the current, I guess, form of self-help that exists in our industry. For farmers in general, I mean, I'm a market gardener. I'm thinking specifically of the market gardening self-help. general, I mean, I'm a market gardener. I'm thinking specifically of the market gardening self-help. I'm thinking of writers and speakers like Jean Martin Fortier and Curtis Stone, both of whom are friends of mine and both of whom I respect a lot. And I realized to some extent, you're at least on the, on the periphery of, of the, of the self-help industry in, in certain types of the consulting you do. But I just wonder, I guess I've been a little

concerned. And I wonder how earlier you were talking about not, you know, not coming in with certain ideas about how things are going to go. And yet, I think a lot of people are being attracted into I'll just talk about market gardening because of these blueprints that are being laid down by people like Curtis and John Martin that, that, that tend to make promises that if you do a, then you will realize goal or success B. I'm just wondering what you think about that. I mean, is that, are there, is there, are there, is there any danger in this current, almost frenzy going on with, with this in, in, in, in the farming self-help world, lots of books being published, um, that are getting lots of non-farmers really excited

about what they're going to achieve in farming. It's such a good point. And I think there's, there's two sort of heuristics to take away. Um, foreign recipes in your kitchen need a chef and not a cook to make well fusion cooking is about taking something that is foreign and taking principles and applying through those principles. And I can't speak to, um, either of their, their processes or, or their blueprints. I've, I've read through both of their books and I've been on the periphery a little bit of Curtis's online course. But it's twofold. One is that when we're created

and when we're born and when we're put into this world, generally in a capitalistic model, silver bullets are offered as real and they're offered as viable. And you and I both know silver bullets are only good for the fictitious creatures that they're meant to kill, which are werewolves. That's it. Silver bullets are good for werewolves. And so whenever somebody, Silver bullets are good for werewolves. And so whenever somebody, be it myself or others on YouTube, say, you know, this worked out really great, I'm very conscious if I don't say it and if I'm watching something

to say, interesting, why did that work for them? What were the pieces about that for them that were incredible? And when we put out these blueprints, when we put out these, these roadmaps to success without principles, I think it can be a dangerous conversation. And I've heard Curtis speak and Curtis talks about principles and I've heard Jean Martin speak. And I think he's talked about principles, but the majority of people who are coming to this are already pre-saturated in silver bullet mentality or blueprint mentality or recipe mentality. Give me the recipe, give me the blueprint, give me the silver bullet. And so

inherently they're going to see what they want to see. They're going to see this is the way to do it. Some of these conversations don't tell the whole story and don't tell the whole conversation. And so, you know, some of those heuristics of, you know, be careful about recipes when you're in your own, you're in your own kitchen. And if you haven't become a chef, if you're just a line cook, a recipe with foreign ingredients and, and not understanding how to cook these foreign ingredients can be disastrous. It's not going to be something you're going to want to serve to somebody. So seek to become a chef versus becoming a cook. Seek to understand the why of food or how food grows or how to market versus Curtis Stone says to stack up everything high.

And at some point that's going to be true, but at some point it's not going to be true. You know, anybody who's coming to this industry, this farming industry, and sees the Curtis Stones, they see the Angelas over in Victoria, they see the cut flower farmer down in Seattle, says, I want to do that, really has to check themselves as the rap song goes before they wreck themselves. Because if they don't look into why that works and how that works, that eventually will come to pass because the reality of the situation always becomes true. Well, I guess in this kind of tangent that I took, Javin, you know, I look, I can go

back to something you earlier said and suggest that, you know, I would I guess I would assume you would you would suggest that that we all need to take personal responsibility for our actions, including taking self-help knowledge with a grain of salt and taking, you know, if things don't go right, taking on that responsibility ourselves, having some agency there. level of responsibility you think the profferers of this help have in in in how they craft their message do they have any responsibility how do you how do you manage that challenge to the extent that you're giving other people advice um there's a navy seal by the name of jocko willow link who who puts this into perspective this is of course on the battlefield and this is you know that has its its whole conversation and cultural ramifications and person personal ramifications but there's something about extreme ownership and saying i'm going to take full responsibility about this i'm going to be responsible for my actions and my interactions and i'm also going to realize that there is a certain boundary that i'm

responsible for me and what i say and how i react and that there's going to be people out there that are not going to like what i say or what i think. And that is, that is a reality of life and cutting ourselves off from feedback, regardless of where we are in the scale of hierarchy of, of influence within any industry. I think there's a danger there that we were not listening to the effect we're having on people. And if we get to the core of what we're doing, I really want to affect change and get people farming or gardening or being independent or not allowing others to dictate the designs on their lives or being inoculated against other people's programming. Then how I say things, and this is why I think holistic context and holistic management is so important, having a driving factor then is inherently connected to how I want to be in the world.

So to answer your question concisely, you know, the too long, didn't read is yes, there's lots of responsibility, but responsibility always starts with yourself. I'm offended. I'm frustrated by this. Great. Why? What's my personal reaction to this? And then how much agency do i have to be able

to resolve that instead of saying i want everybody to resolve my frustrations and and the issues i have and and that's part of an extension of entitlement it's it's it's saying everybody else should solve my problems and i don't feel that that's the case i feel we can share problems the community can come around problems we can discuss problems, but I look at it as if everyone showed up with value and responsibility, what would be the change? And I've been a part of a number of really intense conversations around race and LGBT and been working with a trans person within the life design work. And similarly, when we go through taking more responsibility versus taking less responsibility, the effect, and this is the important piece,

the quality of life thereafter improves with more responsibility. It doesn't decrease. When you outsource the results you want in your life, inherently you're going to suffer because the reality of the situation is only us, only I can change the way I look at the world or the way I interact with the world. Javin, we have only scratched the surface of what I think you wanted to talk about today and what I wanted to ask you about today, but our time is coming pretty close to the end. So I think I better, I better end with this very boring and simple question. You know, you've shared a lot of interesting thoughts today. Where can people find more of your thoughts? I know you've recorded conversations elsewhere, and I know you, you can point them to your own

website. So could you do that right now? If people are hungry for more jav and where do they go? where do they go um they can go to all points design uh all points design.ca for land design they can go to all points life.com and take a look at some of the work and the processes i've done there the podcasts uh the six series podcast i did about mental health with diego you can go to all points design.ca forward slash education forward slash podcast and they're all neatly itemized there. Or you can drop me a line on Facebook or email javin at allpointsdesign.ca. Be a pleasure to hear from folks, good, bad and otherwise. I like starting a conversation and keeping it going. And I also like just seeing that people are becoming more fortified within their mental scope.

So that way their lives can improve because it's something that I spent two decades. Well, now three, three decades doing because my depression started very young. And and I would love to see more people be free from those those ailments of depression, frustration, despair and general anxiety. Javin, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to talk to you. Huge pleasure, Jordan. Thank you so much for what you do in the world.

It's such a great gift. All right, that's about it. Next week, you are most likely going to hear a conversation I recently recorded featuring a critique of compost teas makes you wish that i dumped all the episodes at once just like netflix doesn't it uh anything else yes one more thing if you like what you hear on the show please consider making a donation at the ruminant.ca slash gift registry. Thanks, everyone. Talk to you soon.

I don't fret, honey, I've got a plan to make our final escape. All we'll need is each other a hundred dollars and maybe a roll of duct tape. hundred dollars and maybe a roll of duct tape and we'll run right outside of the city's reaches we'll live off chestnuts spring water and peaches we'll own nothing to this world of thieves and live life like it was meant to be be because why would we live in a place that don't want us, a place that is trying to bleed us dry. We could be happy with life in the country with salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands. I've been doing a lot of thinking Some real soul searching And here's my final resolve

I don't need a big old house Or some fancy car To keep my love going strong So we'll run right out Into the wilds and braces We'll keep close quarters with gentle faces And live next door to the birds and the bees And live life like it was meant to be Bye.