The Farm

NOTE: This post was originally written for the Hourglass2 Outpost Forum on October 1, 1999.

There once existed a farmer who started a farm. It was a new farm, full of fresh and wonderful ideas.

As the farm offered something new and exciting, many animals flocked to it. Many aspects of the countryside outside the farm were unappealing, even dangerous, and the farm seemed to offer a place of refuge, or sanctuary. The farmer, while not perfect, seemed to genuinely care for and nurture the animals. For the most part, peaceful conditions prevailed. The animals on the farm worked hard, but they were treated well, both in terms of their physical provisions, as well as the dignity and respect given them. Occasionally, an animal or two would become disenchanted with some aspect of farm life, and elect to leave. On the whole, though, conditions were good, and many animals lived full and satisfying lives on this farm.

In time, the original farmer died, and the administration of the farm changed hands. In many ways, the succeeding farmers were very talented. One had a great legal mind. Another was a great organizer and administrator, and the farm grew immensely in its physical size, as well as the number of animals.

At the same time the farm was prospering, however, the quality of treatment the animals received began to suffer. Their work conditions at times became very difficult. Virtually every aspect of farm life began to be covered by some type of rule, even in areas which had nothing to do with the success of the farm, but were more personal things that each animal could have decided for himself. Some of these were not even written, but were merely the whim of the supervisor in charge of a particular section of the farm. Slowly, and at times almost imperceptibly, life on the farm became worse. Most of the animals did not really notice this taking place, but a few of the sharper ones did. Occasionally, one of these would speak up and voice his opinion about certain conditions prevailing on the farm. However, not much changed. As he was merely an animal, his opinion did not carry much weight with the administration. Faced with this, some animals stayed. Others left. Occasionally, if an animal made too much of a fuss, he found himself expelled from the farm, and left to fend for himself in the countryside.

As time progressed, another problem began to develop. Certain decisions made by those in charge actually began to hurt the farm. It wasn't that the farmers were bad men, but the combination of the isolation of the farm, rigidity of thought, and lack of dissenting voices led to problems. The farm began to lose respect in the eyes of the community, and many did not want to deal with the farm. Some of the smarter animals, though, began to notice that the farm was no longer growing and prospering, and started to wonder why this was the case.

As they were quite isolated on the farm, kept extremely busy by their farm work, and not exposed to animals from other farms - even animals from different sections of their own farm - most of the animals had no real idea of the issues and challenges being faced by their farm. Some of these issues were a real threat to their farm, and the owners of the farm had successfully kept most of the animals unaware of these, so as to minimize any dissatisfaction and dissent. Certain of the animals who had earlier left the farm were very well aware of, and even spoke about, the issues faced by the farm. But as the animals still on the farm were kept from contact with these, by and large, their ignorance remained.

But then a new communication medium - FarmNet - was created, and became popular. It allowed open communication between animals of all farms, and even between animals in various sections of the farm. This was troubling to the administration, for some of the animals were becoming aware of the difficult issues the farm had been dealing with all these years. For the first time, they became aware of ideas from other farms. Some also talked with animals from other sections of their own farm, and discovered that problems they had thought were unique to them were, in fact, shared. They started to realize that some issues had never truly been addressed, but rather simply evaded or sidestepped.

And so the administration decided they should do their best to keep the animals away from FarmNet. They hoped to maintain the status quo. They hoped for an environment where the animals would keep to themselves. One where they would not be exposed to issues from outside, nor communicate excessively amongst themselves. In an attempt to do this, they issued directives with respect to communication on FarmNet.

But alas, it was failure. The farm did not recover, instead it continued to decline. For while the directives of the administration were successful in keeping some of the animals on the farm in a state of blissful ignorance, two larger problems developed.

The first was that the directives of the farm administration did not influence animals on the outside of the farm. From their vantage point on the outside, they could see clearly that they did not wish to join the farm. While animals from the farm attempted to persuade them to join, it became obvious to the animals on the outside that they knew more about the issues facing the farm than did the farm's own animals. They could see the issues, and they could also see that they were not being dealt with. And so the farm attracted no new animals to its folds.

The second was that the strongest, and most capable, of the animals in the farm were no longer dissuaded by the directives of the administration. They saw firsthand the issues. They asked that something be done. When the administration failed to deal with the difficult problems, and instead demanded that all the animals accept things as they were, some of the animals slowed down in performing their farm work. They became embarrassed to promote their farm to other animals on the outside, because they were unable to answer many of the questions asked by those that they were attempting to attract to the farm.

Some of the strongest animals even began to leave the farm. This was a very sad situation for the farm, as these strong animals had been its backbone, what made it great. And that left only the weakest and sickest animals remaining on the farm. The fields began to go unplowed. The quality of its products grew very poor. The farm started to decline within the larger community, as it had very little of value to be sold in the markets, or to merchants. Town historians later recounted a time when the farm, and what it did, actually became irrelevant in the eyes of the larger community.

This was truly a shame. For the farm, at one time, had been a good farm.