How I Almost Became a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Farmer. Or, How to Stay Human in the Coming Robot Utopocalypse. Or, Why Tillage?

Chapter 1: We need to buy a farm!

This was my immediate, gut reaction after first reading Jayber Crow, a novel by Wendell Berry about a small, dying, fictional farming town called Port William in rural Kentucky.

It knocked me off my feet.

I was reading about a town—bypassed by the newly constructed Interstate and dying—as its people, its Membership, fought to love each other amidst the long defeat of their history.

It was a story where not much happens, and yet, that nothingness speaks loud.

My gut to buy a farm and get close to the land was born from a desire to belong to Place, to take care of Place, and I believed that PLACE was over there [points finger vaguely somewhere; elsewhere].

At the time, I was pretty pale, with soft hands, making a living working on a computer, and living in an urban neighborhood in San Francisco. My closest farming knowledge came from my potato farmer ancestors in Maine who skipped over to Canada at the start of the Revolution because they liked the king (true story; different story).

[looks in a mirror] Not much has changed. I have started climbing, so my hands aren’t quite as soft. I am still pale.

So what to do then?

It took some time, but the more I read (of Berry, of Wallace Stegner, of John Steinbeck, of Jane Jacobs, E.F. Schumacher, and many others who deeply understand Place), I realized that this “go farm the land” was not the primary message and definitely not the message for me (see prior note about paleness and soft hands).

I do know of two people in my life who read Wendell Berry and then proceeded to actually go buy a farm. I wish them well on their journey, and I am a tiny bit jealous.

But back to the main story…. Berry writes in another of his novels, Hannah Coulter, “Most people now are looking for a better place, which means that a lot of them will end up in a worse one….There is no “better place” than this, not in this world. And it is by the place we’ve got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to Heaven….”

First, if you have not read Jayber Crow, please stop reading this and go make the world a better place by reading it. I will buy you a copy if you promise to read it. Do it now. Seriously.

Jayber Crow and all the other stories about Port William are not about farming, not primarily. The overarching narrative of those stories is that the people of Port William are fighting a long defeat as their agrarian histories die and with it, their town. Farms shut down. People move away. The Membership dissolves.

Those stories were about Place. And our connection to Place. And our affection for Place.

This idea, this singular idea that Place matters—and my place in it—took root and would not let go.

“Neo: Morpheus, what’s happened to me? What is this place?”

San Francisco. This beautiful hot mess of a city is maniacally, paradoxically, and simultaneously obsessed with manifesting the next big, big thing while intractably grasping at the vapor of some imagined better past.

It is a legacy of extremes — of missionaries and militants, musicians and murder, innovation and obstruction, wealth and poverty, beauty and brokenness, progress and regress.

Seekers of fortune have long rushed to San Francisco, clinging to a meager existence while hoping to make it big enough to stay, or perhaps big enough to leave while others secretly (and loudly) hope the newcomers will fail and “go back home.” This is no new phenomenon, no unique reaction against the techno-optimists. For hundreds of years, this cycle has shaped The City like the wind and tides shape and reshape the dunes on Ocean Beach.

The City turns over. It booms. It busts. It rushes ever forward, backward—never ceasing in its effort to be more and also less.

“Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You’ve never used them before.”

Chapter 2: The Double Down (not that one)

So Mel and I decided to double down. We decided to go all in on San Francisco, taking a 100-year view, a view that acknowledges that some of what we’re attempting here, maybe most of what we are attempting, won’t be realized in our lifetimes. Or our kids’ lifetimes.

And that’s okay. That might even be the point.

Everything we do, we filter through the lens of “how should we invest our time if we invested for a 100-year return rather than 3, 5, 7 or even 20 years?” It’s incredibly freeing.

“Tank: Okay, what do you need, besides a miracle?
Neo: Guns, lots of guns.”

[hold up; that’s not the right part of the movie.]

“Trinity: Neo, no one has ever done anything like this.
Neo: That’s why it’s going to work.”

To thrive in a place like San Francisco requires a cultivation mindset, like the tilling of the soil so that good seed can take root and flourish.

To follow that agrarian metaphor further, to thrive in San Francisco requires three necessary components: proximity, intentionality, and durability.

I could unpack each of these ideas for days, and days, and days. But this article is running long already, so for now, here’s one big idea for each.

1. Proximity matters because—and this should be self-evident—how can one till the proverbial soil or plant seeds somewhere else?
2. Intentionality matters because when we state “I am for this or that or I want to support you” out loud, we then will make time for, dedicate our resources, and protect that thing or person. Intentionality is a powerfully focusing force.
3. Durability (you could also simply call it “Time”) matters because Frog and Toad taught us that seeds take time to grow and screaming, “Now seeds, start growing!” doesn’t work.

As we have all grown accustomed to marking recent history as pre- or post-COVID, it is important to recognize that that season of time, especially in San Francisco, caused a tectonic shift in our city and many of the rhythms and rituals that helped us to foster thriving community as described above must be rebuilt or made anew.

Chapter 3: Tillage has entered the building

This is where Tillage enters the story. A coworking space.

I see those eyes rolling across the floor. Pick them up!

Coworking? I get it. When Mel and I first started talking to people about Tillage, I avoided labeling it as a coworking space. I called it a third place, fourth place, community center, gathering place, a physical space — anything other than calling it coworking.

Thanks WeWork.

But here we are. So let’s unpack it. I helped start a coworking space back in my hometown of Greenville, SC. We called it CoWork Greenville because this was back in the heady days before WeWork dominated the headlines and “coworking” as a term had yet to enter the common cultural lexicon.

That community still exists today.

I worked out of one of the first WeWorks in Brooklyn when it was a vibrant, novel, beautiful thing.

And, I spent far too many dreary days working out of WeWorks after they became the depressing, hollowed out shell that is the inevitable result of a company that was willing to prostitute itself in an inexhaustible chase for growth.

Thus the tension of using a term like “coworking community.” It promised connection but delivered a place where people go to be lonely together.

And yet, history is filled with rich examples of dynamic third places.

As we set out to define the culture and values for Tillage, we carved out a few hills that we were willing to die on. A few non-negotiables.

1. Intentionally unscalable. We are creating a space that supports thriving in San Francisco. And, in typical San Francisco fashion, we think we’re pretty unique and special flowers. We aim to go deep in San Francisco. And that’s it.
2. Intentionally designed for less. No private offices. No full-time desks. Being embedded in neighborhoods means a place that should get used more frequently, but for less. It is a place for work, but also hanging out, reading, writing, thinking, contemplation, and community events.
3. Intentionally opinionated. One of the major failures of modern coworking spaces is that they are empty shells. They stand for nothing, have no opinions, have no character. Tillage has opinions. We believe certain things cultivate thriving in humans and other things poison it. And those beliefs color every decision we make.

The Next Chapter

Tillage won’t appeal to everyone. That’s intentional. For you who “get it,” Tillage will be a powerful wind in your sails to support your thriving here in San Francisco.

So whether you call it a community center, a third-place, fourth place, or coworking with a soul (my personal favorite), Tillage is built for the future because we are anchored in the past. A past that reflects of The Membership of Port William. A past where a community only takes as much from its Place as is put back by its members. As is sustainable. Forever.

It is our connection to place that gives us a sense of rootedness and belonging. And to belong to a place, we must first know it, cherish it, and cultivate it—both the place and its people.

Whether you come to Tillage Places to work full-time or part-time, create, gather, play, or seek guidance from our onsite vocationality coach or spiritual director—Tillage Place is embedded in your neighborhood to support an ecosystem of thriving and purpose-built to cultivate connection and community throughout the workweek.

“Neo: I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin.”

Membership Pre-Sales launching on March 29. Let’s build Tillage together.

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