His father called it 'refusing to face up to the Real World'; his mother just cried, sighed, and taking him aside, whispered 'Just let me know if ever you need me to send you anything.' Some of his friends called him 'cool', but the majority said 'fool'- Fool for turning his back on the profits and comforts he could now expect after long years of tertiary study; fool for believing in the dream of 'a simple life, away from it all' - Cliche! Cliche!, They sneered.
Yet here he was, in Paradise, Eden, Utopia, call it what you will. Here the dozen or so of them were 'getting back to basics'- that is, simplicity, Mother Nature, the Real Thing.
The land they had 'acquired', (well, you had to have money for some things, didn't you? And it was lucky Jacob had these inherited acres) was their realm, their key to self sufficiency. Their combined motley skills - and lack of - would help them to live in peace, harmony, at one with God and the universe. He revelled in the novelty of this life; so much for the dire warnings of the doom-merchants who'd told him he'd soon run back to parental luxury.
Running back, to Paul, was certainly not an immediate consideration. All his life he'd been told how lucky he was to be so cossetted, so surrounded by the full bounty of Materialism. Heaven to his banker father took the shape of comfort; total luxury and plenty of it. Paul, helping now to prepare a plot for planting seeds, saw again the family mansion: the security gates, the long driveway, tree-lined, of course, leading up to the white and grey pillars that were the introduction to his home. All his life he'd known there would be three cars- His, Hers, and a spare- parked either in garages or under the porch. Those garages! Each one bigger than the shed he and his new family now shared. Yet as he grew up, Paul assumed everyone lived as his family did; certainly all his school friends did. Certainly all his parent's circle too.
