Dealing with your city council

This Steve Pressfield quote is profound enough to type here:

"Most of us define ourselves hierarchically and don't even know it. It's hard not to. School, advertising, the entire materialist culture drills us from birth to define ourselves by others' opinions. Drink this beer, get this job, look this way and everyone will love you. What is a hierarchy, anyway? Hollywood is a hierarchy. So are Washington, Wall Street, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. High school is the ultimate hierarchy. And it works; in a pond that small, the hierarchical orientation succeeds.... When the numbers get too big, the thing breaks down. A pecking order can hold only so many chickens. In Massapequa High, you can find your place. Move to Manhattan, and the trick no longer works. New York City is too big to function as a hierarchy. So is IBM. So is Michigan State. The individual in multitudes this vast feels overwhelmed, anonymous. He is submerged in the mass. He's lost."

For you, the Rural Entrepreneur, the implications are important. 

First, you are tied to a hierarchy. In the big city you would be free of hierarchy, but here you have to be part of a system, less free.

Secondly, you know where you stand. You can move your place in the pecking order, but in either place you are not lost. 


So city entrepreneurs can be more creative, but have a harder time getting things done. 

You musn't allow yourself to be tied to the small-town "system," but you can't ignore it, either.