You can begin living a life of increasing simplicity and independence wherever you are Right Now. You gradually, one step at a time, master a series of skills, until you are ready to divorce yourself from the enclosing grid of American culture entirely. You may never get to the level of total independence, but any step away from fragmented living is an improvement. This is not true. It's much more complex than city life.
City life is the one that's simple.
You get a job and earn money and you go to a store and buy what you want and can afford. The decentralist life in the country, on the other hand, is something else again. The satisfaction lies in making your own living, as opposed to making money and buying your living.