Remote Living, Part 7: Misconceptions

Still no actual questions to answer today, but will that stop me from typing many words anyway?

You should know the answer to that by now.

So! Today I thought I would address some common misconceptions people seem to have about remote living. I think many of these might apply to more-common rural living as well.

Geographic isolation=social isolation.

By this I mean that people seem to have this idea that living in a place like this means a hermit lifestyle. Like you'll move to the middle of nowhere and live an isolated, anonymous lifestyle.

This is very far from the truth. In fact, it's actually the opposite.

There is no anonymity here. None. And the smaller the community you move to, the less anonymity there is. Everyone knows us, even if we don't necessarily know them. Everyone knows our vehicles, and therefore knows when we've gone somewhere. People drive by slowly to case our gardens and animals and then ask about the tomatoes next time they see us.

If you want to be anonymous, live in a city. DEFINITELY don't move to a place with very few people.

Also, you will never be left alone to just tend those tomatoes. As I mentioned before, there aren't enough people to do everything that needs to be done, so you will eventually have to choose in what way you will be involved in your community. Not being involved and just sitting at home watching TV is not an option. 

Again, if you want to do that, live in a city.

Don't live here if you want to be left alone.

Everyone here butchers their own meat, cans their own food, makes their own bread, etc.

Nope. I mean, we do those things, but not everyone does. I wouldn't even say most people do all those things. We're still the weirdos that people bring mean roosters to for disposal.

That said, there is certainly a much higher level of self-sufficiency here than elsewhere. There has to be, because of the level of DIY necessary to live here. So even if everyone doesn't do everything like some kind of latter-day pioneers, everyone knows how to do something. Many people do have some kind of garden, or keep chickens, or sew, or hunt, or weld, or whatever. 

But it's not exactly like "Little House on the Prairie" with Pa making bullets by the fire. Everyone has TVs and tablets and buys their bread from a store.

Well, except us, of course. But like I said, we're the weird exception, not the rule.

On the up side, it's just accepted that I'm the weirdo who dries her own dill. There are worse reputations to have.

Remote people=uneducated people.

Obviously, I can't speak for every remote community, but this is certainly not true here. At least among people around our age or younger, almost without exception, they are college graduates. The cowboys who are working on the big ranches have degrees in Range Management. Their wives have degrees in education or Agricultural Science (or Agricultural Education).

The older people--say, 70 years old and up--mostly didn't go to college, but they made dang sure their children did. As are their grandchildren.

And, thanks to the modern miracle of the Internet, the high school students can (and often do) complete several college courses while they're still in high school.

Okay, I think I'm going to wrap up this Remote Living series here. I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into Unknown Remote America.