alt Hacker NewsThe brain asks:
> I am currently exhibiting overwhelming stress from deeply technical work being part of my every day life, and feel I am missing the 'nature' element of life. What should I do?
The brain responds:
> Gardening! A wonderfully complex system that will just 'live' without me! A delightful escape!
The brain asks:
> Yes, gardening! But how? There are so many variables! What are the parameters? Where is the specification outlining the success criteria? What defines a living organic system?
Replies
Hehe. I recently donated a whole bunch of plants to a school. It was amazing to me how naïve the principal and staff were about plants. I had to explain that, no, no 'ground preparation' was necessary (in fact it was probably harmful) and yes, these plants would be fine once stuck in a hole without any attention: in fact they had evolved for millions of years to live right here!
Standard veggie gardening has very low ROI. Basically you need land (hyper expensive in cities), time, patience, and when you do get a crop it's in peak season and ~free at the shops. That's not to discount the experience or the cleanliness or the taste benefits of organic home grown veg: but from an engineering standpoint, you're better off not bothering. Hydroponics are a completely different beast. We're all lucky our society is no longer agrarian in nature. Hunter gatherers lived far better lives than agrarian peasantry.
Sometimes, life is better as a complex, chaotic and misunderstood system that just happens to work out OK or not.