You speak the facts. It is not escapism, it is battle. And it is a battle that must be fought with every breath. A battle of teaching, guiding, illuminating. As you said, a single plant will not feed the family, but people finding ways to grow a hundred tomato plants in hidden locations? That will. As you said on the ground and the punk akin to Cyberpunk, a community, built through communication in their own language, their own means, coordinating together with others to make sure everyone survives. Not every single person has to do everything, but a community full of people with their own skillsets? That is what is feared by the powers that be. That is why they fear the internet where people can learn. That is why they tried to make parks out to be dangerous places of drugs and criminals so people could not gather and talk. That is why they try to keep people pressured to hide indoors. Even a bunch of people getting together to have an outside dinner under gazebos and string lights scares them.

Which is good. Scare them. Make them be terrified.

This is the answer. I am still waiting on them to start trying to send agents to barge in and "examine" plants in a garden, deciding they need to pull up people's attempts to growing anything at all.

Not because the small house garden would sustain someone, but because they want to send a message.

We get paid this week. We have pills to pay this week.

Have to clean the dehydrator this week for my tomatoes and my peppers.

Part of the issue is that unlike Cyberpunk which had Neuromancer and other early books as the foundations, creating a definition, Solarpunk and even Lunarpunk started on Tumblr as a collaborative concept, and became a collaborative genre over years. If you ask any three people what Solarpunk is to them, they'll differ.

I would say something collaborative would be the ideal; however, I am unsure how best you'd write it.

I admit I've always been a social and friendly person. My spouse and I have traveled and I almost always during the trip end up befriending someone and getting a way to stay in contact, with many I even end up visiting in subsequent trips that pass through the same area.

But for friends from before my 30s and even before my 20s? That is different. Most of my closest friends we've scattered across the planet in our travels and lifestyles, so it is less in person there. Writing letters, sending messages, gifts, postcards, the like is how we do it.

My biggest suggestion is to find a hobby and use that to build a bridge.

When I pick up my spouse from work in the mornings, I go a little early and relax in the parking lot with a book, reading through it, having my MP3 player for classical music. I've read through six novels this year, though small ones (only between 300 to 400 pages).

I play three D&D campaigns, two as a DM one as a player, which help be self-care for me. Same with playing games on my handheld emulator, and tending to my V-Pets.

And my big one is my various plants I tend to. I have the flowers and herbs in the kitchen (zinnias, marigolds, gardenias, basil, and chives), while in my office I have pintos, peppers, onions, lettuce, celery, and a few houseplants growing. Outside I have my potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, and squash as it is summer, when it turns to winter I'll change to garlic under hay in the beds and large pots, while the cold-frame beds I have will grow lettuce and carrots.

I stand by what I was taught by my grandfather and my father.

Only you'll care if it is off, but if someone comes to the house and says it is wrong, hand them a saw and say get to work.

Of course not, Officer!

That is awesome! You got this little pepper friend!

Soldering alone wouldn't work. The house is a monolithic dome, so it has over 20 inches of concrete for the outer most dome layer. I'd have to drill with masonry bolts and risk cracking the concrete of the house for it.

To add about the dressing house up or down,

During the last winter even when it was snowing and in the single-digits outside, we didn't have to turn on the heating for the house using the boiler. By dressing the house up, and ourselves dressing up a bit, the house was plenty warm and comfortable.

For me I admit not as much as I'd like.

I was unable to get solar panels for my house, due to the city's rulings. My house being a dome lacks a traditional roof for solar panels, and the city has a lot of strict rulings against solar panels not on roofs, mostly because the city council hates solar energy. Of course, I have small solar panels with power stations in the yard.

The house also is specifically one that is efficient for such purposes, and we practice dressing it up during the year. Currently we have blackout curtains over the windows that get hotter during the day-time barring the south-facing in my office, where I simply close that door. We also have curtains over hallways. While we have to use a rolling air conditioner due to the house's setup, we focus on only cooling the room that we are in or sleep in during the day-time, and during the night even if it is still 70s to 80s outside, we do what we can do to cool the rest of the house.

I have my own garden I grow vegetables and herbs in, as well as having an indoor garden in a south-facing window with a trellis shelf I built. I am able to grow plants year round. I pickle, dehydrate, and similar methods for everything I grow for the purposes of usage throughout the year, including using the brine from pickling for recipes. Also we make stuff during the night-time and put it to cool, making it able to be eaten several meals instead of every meal-time turning on a stove and cooking.

My spouse and I both have knowledge on repair, both around the house but also clothing, adding our own bits of charm when needed. I also have experience with repairing my bicycle as well as repairing my car, having been a mechanic in the past.