Dirt Deeds

I see the phrase “touch dirt” floated around fairly often these days. I understand the sentiment
behind it, but I don’t quite understand the lifestyle leading up to the point where such advice
becomes necessary in the first place. Somewhere along the line a great many people have
become disconnected from reality, living in a fast-paced, near make-believe world where every
inconvenience becomes a crisis and every passing thought demands immediate attention.

Much of modern life is admittedly a rat race. Bills stack up, schedules fill to overflowing, and
people chase success with the intensity of a greyhound after a mechanical rabbit. A good
portion of that pressure is real. Another large portion, however, is entirely self-inflicted. We
overload ourselves with noise, distractions, manufactured outrage, and a constant need to
appear busy, important, or perpetually entertained.

We were never designed to absorb the opinions, tragedies, arguments, and anxieties of
thousands of strangers every waking hour. Yet many people start their mornings doom scrolling
before their feet ever hit the floor. By lunchtime they are aggravated over politics in states
they’ve never visited, angry at celebrities they’ll never meet, and exhausted from carrying
burdens that were never theirs to begin with.

Then comes the advice to “touch dirt,” as if standing barefoot in the yard for ten minutes is
some grand spiritual reset button. Truthfully, most ordinary people already know where life’s meaning is found. It’s in supper around the kitchen table. It’s in laughing with old friends. It’s in church pews, fishing poles,
baseball games, garden rows, and sitting on a porch after a long day while the world quiets
down around you. Meaning has never been hiding from us in some secret self help ritual. We’ve
simply allowed ourselves to drift too far from the simple things that grounded people for
generations.

I’m not against hiking trails, sunshine, fresh air, or taking a break from technology. Most of us
could benefit from more of all four. But we should never become so consumed by trivial
nonsense that we require a formal reconnection ceremony with reality itself. Human beings are
not houseplants needing carried outside periodically for survival.

A simpler life will cure a surprising amount of modern frustration. Not an easier life necessarily,
but a simpler one. Less noise. Less performance. Less obsession with every passing outrage the
internet throws onto our screens. The world functioned just fine before every citizen became a
full time commentator on every issue under the sun.

Maybe instead of telling people to “touch dirt,” we ought to encourage them to plant roots
somewhere worthwhile in the first place.