Earning My Opinions the Slow Way

What’s on my mind?

I’ve been carrying a quote around in my head lately—one of those lines that sounds simple until it starts messing with how you live.

Dr. William A. Albrecht said: “Study books and observe nature. When the two don’t agree, throw out the books.”

I don’t read that as anti-book. I read it as anti-ego.

Because if I’m honest, my default setting isn’t “observe.” My default setting is “solve.” And not just solve—solve fast. Solve with certainty. Solve with something I can buy.

It can be hard to slow down in a world that has learned how to pull all of our mental levers through marketing—how to press on fear, urgency, status, optimization. The message is always the same: you’re behind, you’re missing something, and the answer is one click away.

And then I heard about forest bathing—shinrin-yoku—this idea that in Japan, spending intentional time in the woods is treated like legitimate preventive care. In some settings it’s recommended almost like a prescription: go spend time in the forest.

Of course, the first thing I did was try to make the forest convenient.

I bought essential oil from Japan and put it in my sauna so I could “forest bathe” on my schedule, in my controlled environment, in a place that didn’t require me to actually go be with trees.

I recognized the ridiculousness of it immediately—like the moment the first drops hit the heat, something in me quietly went, Buddy… that’s not the point.

That little moment is basically my whole personality.

I love complication. I love systems. I love the feeling that I can control something by understanding it deeply enough and paying the right price. Expensive and complicated can feel like control. And nature has a way of taking the control away—politely, patiently, and over and over.

This shows up most aggressively in my health.

I want a high-quality life for as long as possible—mentally and physically. I picture some future day in a room with my great-grandchildren, and I want to be able to get up and down off the floor with them. When a new health gadget or test shows up in my feed, it’s hard not to sprint toward it. Something in me believes the right device will buy me time.

And that same “expensive certainty” instinct shows up in my work.

Lately I’ve been looking for ways to do more testing in-house rather than sending everything out. There are reliable test kits on the market—kits that have been used for years, that work, that are accessible. And yet I caught myself researching lab-quality equipment I can’t afford. Not because I actually needed it, but because I wanted the feeling of it. The feeling that I was doing it the “real” way.

When I finally let go of the dream of owning that equipment, I felt disappointed—like going back to the test kits I’ve used before somehow meant I was settling. Even though I don’t know a single person who owns the expensive machine I was obsessing over.

That’s such a strange thing about the mind: it can convince you that what’s practical is inadequate, and what’s unaffordable is necessary.

Then I made fermented plant juice for the first time.

Last year, with the last tomatoes from my garden, I mixed them with equal parts brown sugar and watched them ferment for about ten days. I strained it and set it aside for this year’s tomato plants. I spent about three dollars on brown sugar.

Now I have about a third of a gallon of fertilizer that I dilute 1:500 with water.

No shipping. No other products. No chemicals. No marketing funnel. Just tomatoes, sugar, time, and biology doing what biology does.

I have enough for my garden—and probably enough for everyone in the neighborhood growing tomatoes too.

And here’s the part that got me: my first reaction wasn’t joy. It was suspicion.

It can’t be this easy.
It can’t be this inexpensive.

That reaction tells me something about the training I’ve been through. Somewhere along the way, I learned to associate complicated with credible. Expensive with effective. And I learned to walk right past solutions that are sitting in plain sight because they don’t create the right kind of drama in my brain.

This winter, while reading about plant nutrition and health, I kept running into a phrase I hadn’t thought about in a while: first principles.

What if I had no prior knowledge?
What if I wasn’t trying to prove I belong?
What if I wasn’t trying to be impressive?
How would I approach the problem then?

I don’t have a formal education in this stuff. I’m not a biologist. I don’t have an MBA. And that voice still shows up sometimes: Who am I to have an opinion? It can keep my hand down when I should raise it.

But I’m starting to think that “not being trained” can be a strange kind of advantage.

Because when you haven’t been taught what “can’t work,” you’re sometimes free to try what everyone else walks past. You’re sometimes free to be wrong in public. Free to learn out loud. Free to stumble into something simple and true.

I’ve said things on social media that made me look foolish. I’ve had foot-in-mouth moments about things I knew nothing about. And I’m oddly grateful for that, because I’m learning to treat being wrong as information, not identity.

When I say, “Don’t believe me and the things I say—perfect,” I mean it. I’m not being snarky. I’m being genuine. Show me a better way. Prove me wrong. Do it better.

So I can start copying you.

There’s a Maya Angelou line that has been following me for years: Do your best until you know better. Then do better.

That’s the whole thing, right there. That’s leadership. That’s parenting. That’s learning. That’s being human.

And it brings me back to Albrecht’s quote, because “throw out the books” doesn’t mean books are useless. It means books aren’t the boss.

Books are maps. Nature is the terrain.

On a nearly 70-degree day in February—which is its own kind of message—I can feel myself standing on the edge of a nest. I’ve read a lot recently. I just completed forty weeks of regenerative agriculture and microscope education. I’ve been gathering knowledge like sticks and twigs. And now it’s getting close to the time to jump.

But if I jump into action without remembering my most important tool, I’ll miss the whole point.

Observation.

Taking the time to think.
To pause.
To be in the space long enough that the insect life comes out of hiding.
To look at the blades of grass instead of the headlines.
To let the forest come to me.

Last week I had two conversations with people who were genuinely curious about the worm farm. People not in agriculture. People with good questions. Neither one had ever heard of worm castings.

Every time I think about that, I’m amazed. And I’m also a little stunned at what we’ve collectively accepted as normal.

But I don’t say that from a place of judgment. I say it from a place of wonder.

Because if something as ordinary as egg shells and coffee grounds can be reimagined—not as trash, but as ingredients—what else have we been walking past? What other obvious, low-cost, right-in-front-of-us solutions are waiting for us to notice them again?

Maybe this is part of the work: not just learning more, but slowing down enough to see more. To test small things. To share what we find. To stay curious together.

I’m not looking to be the expert. I’m looking to be a student—out loud. A citizen scientist in my own backyard. If you’re wired the same way, come with me. Try something simple. Observe what happens. Tell someone what you noticed.

There are so many simple solutions all around us—just waiting for us to rediscover them.

This year, I’m trying to earn my opinions the slow way.

And if you find a better way—please show me.