Will Not Compute

...friends, every day do something that won't compute.

- Wendell Berry

The poem from which this line is taken is about living your life in a way other than that prescribed by bureaucracy and business interests. The line asks us to do things that don't seem "normal" and which may confuse anyone who lives their life according to "common sense." Why challenge or resist common sense? Well, because common sense is just that - a system of beliefs and ideas that are held by the majority of the people around you. To live your life according to the precepts of the majority means that you trust VERY STRONGLY that the majority of people in your town or city know exactly what they're doing. That's probably not very likely.

Especially because the majority of people around you aren't operating solely on what they have figured out for themselves or as a community. No, much "common sense" is also a product of the suggestions and images we receive from the government, media, schools, business, and various other institutions with interests they hope to promote by cultivating particular germs in the larger store of "common sense." French critics have a more precise term for this kind of common sense - idees recue (received ideas). Received ideas are those notions that have filtered out into society and are accepted as valid simply because they are repeatedly stated. "Green consumerism" is an idea that has enjoyed a good deal of uncritical reception, for example, but which holds some problems upon closer examination (i.e. that often the "greenest" thing you can do is curb your consumption).

How to avoid the pitfalls of common sense and received ideas? Take actions and think thoughts that "don't compute" in the network of common sense. The poet from whom I took the quote suggests doing things like "planting sequoias" and "asking questions that have no answers."

For my part, yesterday I bought the ingredients to make bread and waited 18 hours for it to rise, when I could've just bought a loaf for $1.50. But can you really put a price on the satisfaction that comes with making your own ball of baked dough?

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Excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
By Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag.