Get the ice packs ready, because this story is about to warm your heart so much it’s going to burn a hole in your shirt: When this farmer’s land was repossessed by the bank, he started growing his crops inside his imagination, where they could never be taken away from him.
Wonderful! What an amazing testament to the power of human mind!
Fifty-two-year-old farmer Daryl Gosard has been farming since he was six years old, and he’s got the sun-weathered skin and calloused, scarred hands to prove it. Farming is a tough life, but it’s all Daryl has ever wanted to do, so when the bank repossessed all 160 acres of cropland that made up his modest vegetable farm in Oklahoma, Daryl set out to make sure that his farm could never be taken away from him ever again by rebuilding it from scratch inside his very own imagination.
After selling off everything of any value he had left to his name, Daryl was able to move into a small low-income rental property in Tulsa, some 130 miles away from the land he’d tended with his blood, sweat, and tears for decades. Unable to afford a TV or internet, Daryl set to work building the farm of his dreams inside his own mind: 560 acres of fertile, organic soil with the latest farm equipment and a beautiful, state-of-the-art barn. Leaning back in a chair he found in a dentist’s dumpster with his eyes shut and a Winston dangling from his lips, Daryl now spends his days envisioning waking up at the rooster’s crow and stepping outside into the morning’s brisk spring air to plant perfect row after perfect row of restaurant-grade produce. From there, he goes on to milk his cows and collect giant eggs from his flock of blue ribbon hens, all of them completely safe from the threat of repossession thanks to their secure location inside his mind’s eye.
Even in the event Daryl is evicted from his apartment (which is likely to happen soon), his imaginary farm will still be safe from the clutches of greedy bankers, whether he’s imagining it while falling asleep in the back seat of his truck or while taking his first hot shower in weeks in a truck stop. No matter how bleak the real world around him is, Daryl will always be able to escape back to the farm of his dreams within the blink of an eye, all by using the one thing that they can never take away from him: his imagination.
Beautiful. Way to not let those fat cats rob you of your dreams, Daryl!
Good luck crawling inside Daryl’s brain and repossessing his farm there, bankers. We could all learn a thing or two about harnessing the power of our imaginations in the face of adversity from Daryl. So the next time you unexpectedly get laid off or lose custody of your son, remember that a different world is within reach inside your own head. This is simply as inspiring as it gets.
