Reply #3: People are poor because they have abandoned the land

[Skidmore]

for the gleaming cities on the hill and easy money. The land requires an investment of sweat and muscle. It requires a dedication to stewardship and a willingness to live with what nature brings your way. It means being willing to take pride in callouses and dirt under the fingernails and to take pleasure in the odor of moist tilled soil. You can't plug these things into a modem or tend them from the shiny blandness of a cubicle. Any yields you get must be from the labor of attending to the needs of the plants and animals in your care, not the steaming heaps of verbal bullshit produced around conference tables and over fiber optic cables. The land is our most valuable asset and is to be treasured. Those of us who claim it, walk it, hold it in our hands, and revel in its mystery and power are often mocked here. I would much rather be a servant of my little patch of earth than to be shackled to industry in its current iteration. I love the soil and if I treat it with respect, it returns much joy to me. Come, dig in the dirt with me. Find the roots that run under it and the creatures crawling through it. Come, learn the pleasure of grass between the toes and stretch your arms up to the canopy of leaves over your head. Come, throw your head back and revel in its rich twinkling ceiling unhidden by artificial light. Come, breath in the sunlight and drink in the riverlets. Come, reclaim the bounty spread out before you. You have thrown so much away in the name of convenience.