For some, the benefits for society are not as immediately visible as a farmer producing potatoes or corn which he/she can touch with their own hands, but in my personal view my job positions me as a not insignificant cog in a gigantic machine which has genuine benefits for society (and some negative influences, yes).
Some red flags in the linked article. Spirituality and barefoot running, which I do not believe is very evidence based to recommend. My opinion is that anyone working a software engineering office 9-5 should also always be doing strength resistance training and some cardio every single week. This should provide the health benefits needed to survive in what is a sedentary job.
There is a visceral spiritualism to working with your hands, but if you can achieve that with coding, great! Live a life you would want if money didn't matter.
Writing code is also working with your hands. It produces real world effects which even if you cannot observe them directly still provide societal benefit: The "impact" of this can in many cases be much larger than a manual job.
Sure, correcting "pursuit of happiness" to "pursuit of contentment/fulfillment/purpose" is pedantic, but it makes me happy ;p
It's also a connotative reminder to ourselves & others to seek rewards with longer time horizons
I highly recommend both.
But as just as there are lots of cults and scams in the spirituality world, just starting to run barefeet will likely hurt you very quickly.
No ideas about studies here, but they would need to include a lot of factors to be meaningful for generalisation. For example if you did not do running around barefeet as a kid at all, your bones might not be strong enough if you start as a adult. And then you have to be extra careful to develope more muscles there.
Also where you run matters a lot. Basically, anything soft is nice. Gras, a sandy beach, forest tracks. Running on snow is also nice (for some time). But once your skin is stronger, also gravel roads can be fun. Just not flat asphalt.
I can just say running barefoot gives me immense joy and helps my body be in good shape. Strong flexible feet act like a shock absorbers for all the other joints in your body btw.
For me, my joy has come from strength resistance training and my discovery of the stairmaster. The latter was a very fun find! It's a really strenuous exercise which makes you strong for hiking in the wilderness and I feel like I do not need to do it for as long as the treadmill which I hate.
Yeah, but wikipedia for example says this, which matches my experience:
"Scientific research into the practice of running barefoot or with minimalist shoes is increasingly suggesting that it increases intrinsic foot muscle size and strength, but it has been limited to healthy individuals and further research is required to reach definite conclusions."
If you are healthy and do it right, it seems beneficial.
So it is smart to not recommend it in general for everyone as most ain't healthy, nor do take the time to do things right.
And same with spirituality, it is just such a broad term. I believe there are quite some studies that show positive effects of mindful meditation for example. But sure, you won't find positive studies about health benefits of astrology or homeopathy if that is what spirituality means to you.
But more on the matter, I am not so much a advocate of running barefoot, but doing anything barefeet if possible. Dancing is so much more enjoyable for me like this, so many more moves possible without shoe restrictions, but it depends of course on the setting and place.
(Now I will go out and do some rock climbing barefeet)
"If you could see the cabbages I have planted here with my own hands, you surely would never have thought to request this."
Every Web 3.0, leftist, tech bro I ever met, idolize the farmin lifestyle and see before them a hippy commune where free love is practiced.
I never ever seen that, or heard about the leftist tech bro who actually did it.
I agree that farming is definitely romanticized in some tech circles, and it is not for everyone. Of course my tech experience wasn't universal, but even if ZIRP free money comes back to tech, I'll still be here tending my field :)
With the way the industry is moving, this seems much harder now than in the past.
People on the Right fantasize about the farming lifestyle, too.
I went back. Sleepless nights in the tractor is my favourite time of year.
But you're still ultimately just siting there staring at a screen — albeit a screen on wheels. Same as software development (minus the wheels).
If that's hard toil, I'm not sure what you think is easy?
But this is what the classics of stoicism (in the literal sense of both) have been telling us the whole time. We make our own meaning, and money isn't it. Go and grow things. Raise things. Build things.
Civilization is when men plant trees in whose shade they will never sit.