About Us

Mad Farmer Fitness gets its name from the title of a poem by Wendell Berry, “Manifesto:  The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”

This piece of writing was the inspiration for our name because of how it relates to the way we run as a business and as a community.  The manifesto underscores the importance of doing the right thing, even in the face of societal norms that encourage us to do otherwise. It serves as a call to action, urging readers to live authentically and ethically in a world increasingly driven by materialism and consumerism.

Berry’s poem is a celebration of simple, ethical living, advocating for a return to values that honor the earth, community, and personal integrity. It encourages embracing actions that foster sustainability and genuine human connections. This includes the metaphorical planting of sequoias, which symbolizes investing in long-term, selfless endeavors that benefit future generations, and actions that are "right" even if they do not yield immediate personal benefits. The Mad Farmer Liberation Front is about leaving a legacy of care and stewardship, rather than exploiting resources for short-term gain.

Additionally, the poem emphasizes the importance of love and care as central tenets of ethical living. By advocating for joy and laughter, despite the world's hardships, Berry suggests that doing the right thing involves maintaining a hopeful and positive outlook. This aligns with a broader philosophy that ethical living is not just about grand gestures, but also about cultivating everyday joy and kindness.

Berry's manifesto ultimately challenges us to live by our values, even when it is inconvenient or countercultural. It calls for a life of deliberate simplicity and ethical consistency, suggesting that the right thing to do is often at odds with societal expectations. This call to authenticity and integrity, to living a life grounded in care for the earth and each other, underscores the poem’s message that doing the right thing is crucial for both personal fulfillment and the greater good.

At Mad Farmer Fitness, we too seek to live with integrity and intention, joy and love, and to always do right by our athletes and our community.  We welcome you to become a Mad Farmer; together we can be our most authentic, ethical, and powerful selves.  Together we can plant sequoias.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

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