Chapter 3 ~ The village or the forest?

And here I am, six years later—feeling that ancient impulse again. The same one. The one that says: Explore. Because service is more comforting than exploration.

Chapter 3

I’ve read many books that claim a life of service is the path to true inner peace. Maybe that’s true for some. But for me, that runway was too short. Or maybe I just didn’t stick the landing.

I speak only from personal experience—because I know that for many, service brings fulfillment. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt the warm embrace from acts of service. I tried to embody that ethos: growing food, tending the land, caring for something beyond myself. And it does feel good.

But if I’m honest—it didn’t satisfy me. Not completely.

For a long time, I felt guilty. Like I was missing some vital spiritual gene that others had. I told myself: You’re just restless because you have more to give. That helped, for a while. It gave me a reason to carry on. But the emotions kept swirling, the questions kept poking:

Why am I feeling that familiar tug again—the same one that made me quit my job and become a farmer? Why this again? I’ve already done so much soul-searching. Don’t tell me I’m back at ground zero. Be happy with what you’ve achieved, James, and stop chasing rainbows. You’ve found your meaning—now shut up and serve.

Almost every self-help book I’ve read told me—if I give enough, sacrifice enough, serve others—I’ll live a fulfilling life. And honestly, those books did help me. But looking back, I realise it’s because they offered a quick and easy remedy to attain meaning. I remember a great book that gave me a huge “aha” moment. 

Here’s what it said: “In this method, you don’t ask, ‘What do I want from life?’ You ask a different set of questions: ‘What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do?’ In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.”

It went on: “People with vocations don’t ask: ‘What do I want from life?’ They ask: ‘What gap is there in my circumstances that demands my skill set?’ … It’s not found by looking inside you for your passion. It’s found by looking outward, by being sensitive to a void or a need—and then answering the chance to be of use.”

Fwahhh. It felt like someone had injected cocaine straight into my veins. My eyes widened like I’d just seen God descend from the heavens. I was electric—charged up. World, here I come. I hope you’re ready.

It took me five years to come down off that high.

I crashed. I burned. Then scavenged for answers amongst the wreckage. But there weren’t enough pieces to put it back together again.

Eventually, I stopped reading those types of books and started reading Alan Watts, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Carl Jung—thinkers who made me feel more at ease with letting go of the belief that altruism is the only path to fulfillment. In fact, Nietzsche made altruism look so contradictory he left it shattered in a thousand pieces.

In one of his more searing lines, he wrote:

“Altruism is a moral instinct cultivated to suppress individual strength and creativity.”

The problem with these philosophers is they don’t give you easy answers. In fact, they just about shatter every pillar of meaning humans have built since the Mesopotamian era. And that includes most religions. They leave you in complete darkness. They hand you a torch and show you how to use it—but they laugh at you when you ask for a map.

It seemed much easier to follow a set of rules. A convenient step by step guide with the only limit being your grit and determination.

But I couldn’t shake the feelings.

I imagined dedicating my whole life to serving others. But when I did, I felt resentment growing inside me. Resentment for the life I wasn’t going to live. For the dreams I would bury. I imagined getting to the end of my journey and feeling like I was owed something.

Then I remembered something.

My mum was watching a documentary about Mother Teresa—a woman she deeply admired—and was surprised to find out how much she struggled with her faith. This added to my growing doubts around service and duty.

I found out later that letters published in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (2007) revealed she experienced profound spiritual despair. For nearly fifty years—starting around the time she began her work in Calcutta—she described a “darkness” and an absence of God’s presence. She wrote of feeling “dryness,” “loneliness,” and “torture,” despite her public image of cheerfulness—at times even calling her smile “a mask.”

Here was one of the most admired women in history. A person living arguably the most altruistic life imaginable. Guidebook in hand. Answers for nearly every spiritual and moral conundrum. And what did she get?

I couldn’t help but feel her sacrifice was too much for any human to bear. No matter the good one does, no one deserves fifty years of loneliness, dryness, and spiritual torture. Many honour her for enduring it with faith. But I still can’t reconcile how that honour makes up for half a century of suffering.

I won’t deny that a sense of duty can help you push through hard times. It helped me. When the summers were long, the rain wouldn’t stop, the crops kept perishing, and motivation vanished—I’d remind myself of all the good we were doing. Think of your children’s future. The community you’re feeding. The environment you’re protecting. I’d sing them off in my head like mantras.

Let’s be honest—it was those mantras and a lot of caffeine.

But even then, something was missing. I felt like I was losing something—my sense of adventure. I wish I could stop myself from questioning. God only knows it would be a much simpler life. But I don’t think I want to lose that part of me either. I’m not sure I want my life to be more predictable.

That’s what brought me to the farm in the first place. That same questioning made me leave behind everything I thought I wanted, and risk it all to enter a world I knew nothing about.

And look what it brought me.

I found my true self. I probably saved my marriage. I built a deep, unshakeable bond with my kids. My dad and I hugged each other and told each other we were proud—bawling our eyes out in the middle of a field after one of the hardest weeks in our relationship. I’ve  finally understood my Mum's wisdom. The list goes on.

There have been miracles these past few years.

And I owe it all to those gentle taps on the shoulder. Look over here, they whispered. If you’re brave enough, you might just find something special.

That was the hardest part. Not the noticing—but the courage to follow them, even without knowing where they were leading.

Before farming, I had everything society told me I was supposed to want: the career, the house, the wife, the kids. Many told me I was crazy to leave it behind. A few told me they wished they had the guts to do the same.

And here I am, six years later—feeling that ancient impulse again. The same one. The one that says: Explore.

Because service is more comforting than exploration.

To serve is to know. To know your place in the village. To know your role and the importance of it. To suppress the voice that calls you toward the forbidden forest at the edge of town. To soothe the part of you that asks if there’s more.

Duty. Honour. Service. I’m not saying they don’t matter. They do. But only if love leads me there in the first place.

Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote that true service arises from mindfulness and joy, not duty. If I do not love my duty, my honour, my service—I fear I’ll become bitter, rigid, resentful. Because if the only way I can serve is to ignore the part of me that wants to explore, then I’m not serving freely. I’m just submitting.

After leaving the city and coming to the farm, I thought, this is it. But when those feelings returned, I felt frustrated and foolish. I thought I’d found my place, I told myself. And here I am again.

So I do what I always do—I wrestle with every question, every emotion. I build stories that lead me back to the safety of the harbour, while also weaving myths and legends that call me to the open sea.

I rotate from one position to the other, each side having its moment of glory, pinning the opponent down.

And in the end, I have to admit: a life of duty and service wasn’t strong enough to make the explorer in me tap out. That part of me still wants to face the things that make me nervous, that make me afraid.

And at that moment of realisation, my wife Emily looks at me—eyebrows raised, lips tight, deep inhale… deep exhale—“Here we go again.”

I smile back with a grin from a man that knows his luck. 

I imagine it’s a rare thing to have this kind of love. 

I will never take it for granted.

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