I recently came across a book about dirt.
Yes, dirt. It’s called ‘Dirt, the Erosion of Civilizations’ by David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but the author makes a few very compelling and alarming points.
First, the fall of Rome was caused by a lot of different factors, and soil may have been one of them. The Romans had a lot of mouths to feed, and the soil may have had a hard time keeping pace with all of that demand.
Next, I learned that Planet Earth is losing healthy soil at an alarming rate. In fact, according to a Reuters story I came across, a UN official said that “if current rates of degradation continue, all of the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years.” Given the explosion in the global population, we need our soil to produce more, not less. Especially since, population-wise, humans went from about 3 billion to 7.5 billion in the span of 60 years, give or take.
We are asking the soil of this planet to perform at a miraculous level, but we seem unable to manage that soil properly, and as such, we are losing it at an alarming rate. Being the obsessive worrier that I am, I started Googling soil conservation and started to learn about how soil needs time to rest; to go dark for a spell.
It’s impossible to read about the soil crisis and not see the spiritual metaphor.
GOING DARK
I live in Silicon Valley where productivity is a religion. We worship our ability to get things done with style, flash, and ease, and have an aggressive kind of optimism that almost borders spiritual greed.
I worry about us. I worry that we are over-farming ourselves and eroding our own soil, so to speak. I wonder if we may be in desperate need of time to just go dark.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, and have decided that I am going to go dark for a month, to let the soil of this podcast rest.
It has yielded such beautiful fruit. I’ve had such powerful conversations, and connected with so many of you over Instagram, LinkedIn, and through my website. But for now, I want to pause and rest before the joyful energy that powers this podcast becomes something more forced.
Of course, making this decision has my insane thought generator, as Ben Kiker calls it, going nuts. My brain is saying, ‘What are you thinking? You’ve got so much momentum. People will forget about you. You’ll lose your audience. Hang up the for sale sign because nobody gives a shit.’ And while all of that may actually be true, here’s what I know; when I point myself in the direction of joy, good things happen, and right now, a period of creative rest is exactly that.
In the meantime, I want you to consider this;
Where do you need to go dark? What aspects of your life need time to rest? How might you opt-out of things mindfully and intentionally, so that you can create a cave-like environment that is so necessary for breakthroughs?
Before we know it, the season will change and demand more from us. So how might we prepare by doing nothing, or at least less? It starts with learning to practice compassion for the part of yourself that is terrified to go dark and feel irrelevant. To reassure yourself that nothing will be taken away. Wrap yourself up in a blanket of worthiness and enough-ness, and trust that life rewards those who work hard, rest deeply, and act unapologetically.
SET AN INTENTION
For me, that looks like doubling down on my commitment to silence, meditation, and exercise, while revisiting my digital minimalist values (they got a little eroded over the past few months). It also means consciously setting up rituals of recharge while on the road to maximize downtime and rest, in order to begin building the battery of ideas for next season’s podcasts.
It sounds delicious to me, and if it sounds even remotely delicious to you, you might be needing it. I hope you make time to ask yourself these same questions, and I’ll see you in a month or two.
For now, drop me a note through my website, Instagram, or LinkedIn, and let me know what I can help with, or if you have any requests. Anything, really, I love hearing from you guys. I read everything, even if I may not get the chance to respond, but I read it, and it nourishes me.
So until next time, shine on you crazy diamonds.
You make my life a beautiful place, and I’m so grateful to have you in it.
See you soon.
