A quieter, simpler place in the country

Somehow, I have always had an image of a place to live where there was more nature and less of mechanistic society. Today I realized that I have been searching for this quiet place for a long time, far longer than I realized.

It can be easily described: a quiet, peaceful place to live and work, well-connected with fiber optics, a clean environment with good water and fresh air, and no noise pollution.

The source of this desire is quite understandable, now that I think of it. I grew up in a quiet place on the outskirts of a small town in Western Massachusetts. We were a family that read voraciously, did all sorts of craft work with Mother’s skillful direction, and did major building projects under Dad’s watchful eye. We were physically isolated, but connected to the world through books and radio.

It was expected that my sister and I would go to college and make our way in the world as the first generation of our family educated beyond high school. We did just that and while my sister stayed in Massachusetts, I spent my adult life following the high tech circus as it moved from Rte 128 near Boston around the US to end up in Silicon Valley.

As my worklife became increasingly hectic, my home neighborhoods became less bucolic, although in most cases I managed to find or create some natural beauty spot as a respite from longer and more onerous working conditions.

I have come almost full circle with our recent move from Silicon Valley to rural Virginia, but as my recent post about creeping urbanization showed, I still have a way to go before I find the quiet place I have in mind.

Gretchen shares this vision, as she has similar small town roots, so we continue our search for a place that offers quiet space for living while providing high speed internet access to our growing circle of friends all over the world.

We think we may have found one that suits our needs. It will undoubtedly be the subject of many posts in the months to come.

While writing this, I recognized similar cycles in the lives of others. They left childhood homes in small towns for a life in industry and they followed a career path that took them from one big city to the next. As they entered the post-corporate phase of their lives, it made more sense to live in areas that were out of the main stream and more conducive to developing a non-industrial career.

With the onset of the wired age, this traditional cycle of moving to the city for opportunity may be broken completely for those who make a living handling and creating information.

Perhaps there will be mini-cycles of linking up with a corporate network for projects of various durations, interspersed with bidding and negotiating for contracts on an "Ebay Job Market" of the future.

Whatever happens, the future will be blogged. You can count on it.