Let's get down to basics. In the western world, if you don't get enough food in before winter comes, as well as dry wood to heat your house, you die. Here in Thailand you can always survive, plenty of stuff like frogs and crickets to keep you going, sleep under a tree. This is the basic difference between the Protestant work ethic (sow as you will reap or whatever) and the mañana attitude in the tropics. Europeans are always worrying about tomorrow, what happens to their children, Thai people for example don't give a stuff about tomorrow. Colonists were horrified to discover peoples that only worked three months a year and destroyed entire ways of life to get things working 'efficiently'.

Yes the end of the world is approaching and we have to get some wood, dried peas and spiritual merit in before it happens.

This and several other topics have given me a great deal to think about. I need to find a way to adjust to the realities of life here much better. Not for anyone other than myself and my own peace of mind.

...to get things working 'efficiently'.

That is probably my biggest failing. All my experience has built towards a better mousetrap and I live in a land where people watch the mice run by. Farmaggedon for me is coming, things meaning me, need to change.

As long as you never loose the idea that you can always improve the way you do things, that you can always learn, stay mentally alert, then all is not lost.

I looked at the way about 20 guys were turning their rice over almost every day (driving by, I'm not stupid); only one guy had something that seemed to be making the job easier, some were using brooms, most had mattocks or similar. Nobody seemed to have the idea of looking around at how other guys were doing things, no 'aha!' experiences there. (I love these moments when I have them, not so much creativity as a willingness to be playful and to learn. Maybe it's the same thing). Agriculture does have a tendency to wear you down and repress your capacity to be creative I have found.