So we’ve started a garden.
Yeah, I know this is a blog about the Digital Age, but occasionally it’s nice to get back to basics, even for us nerds. To get down to earth. To get our hands dirty.
And actually, maintaining a garden is a little videogame-y, if you think about it. I just recently got back into Lord of the Rings Online, and it’s interesting how similar they feel. (I’m not crazy, I swear.) There’s that same slow crawl, the work-at-it-a-little-every-day mentality. Except in an MMO you’re fighting monsters and crafting items (I have a character who farms, weirdly, but I haven’t played him in a while). You kill some stuff, do some quests, knock out a bunch of recipes every day. If you’re smart, you do it with a friend. It’s a grind, and the reward is becoming more powerful.
Here, the reward is tasty, tasty vegetables, and the grind is watering and weeding and waiting (and doing it with a friend ain’t a bad idea either).
Really, though. I know not everyone lives in the suburbs and has room in the back yard for this kind of thing, but you can even grow some stuff in the house, on a windowsill or out in a planter. And you should — try, at least. It’s no more tedious and time-consuming than playing some of the videogames we love to play (a lot less than that, actually), but the reward is a little more tangible. Good for you too. And it feels like you’re doing something special, like you’re making something and connecting with some ancient art.
I think the more and more we go Digital, the more time we should take to stop and smell the tomatoes. But that’s just me. Any other computer nerd gardeners out there?
(They smell pretty fantastic.)