重拾失控的野性与纯粹的乐趣：园艺、游戏与反思效率崇拜

Rebecca McMackin: Things that are really important for us are not easy. Like getting together with friends, allowing your kids to go play together without adult supervision. Like these are not easy. What's easy is to spend a lot of time on products whose designers make money when you spend a lot of time on them. Okay, Katherine, what do people get wrong about productivity?

Catherine Price: I think we get the whole concept of productivity wrong. To me, I think we tend to think that productivity has to do with money, that if you use time on something and you don't have a quantifiable output, in many cases financial, then it's not worth it, that you weren't productive. And so when I think about it, I try to think of other ways that you can have a productive use of your time. For example, like if you're just hanging out with a friend and you have a great conversation, why is that not considered productive? Right? And I'm curious about your thoughts in terms of gardening, what is productive, what's not productive? Like the root of productive is to lead forth producco if I make it super dorky and go Latin right at the beginning of this conversation. But I also just get so tired of when there's the assumption that you need to have an output in or of any kind in order to have something be classified as productive. What do you see the connection being between the work that you do and the way that you encourage people to garden for the sake of gardening with our society's obsession with productivity?

Rebecca McMackin: I do think the way that most people garden certainly there are some productive gardeners who are interested in growing like the most humongous uh pumpkins that have ever been grown.

Catherine Price: It's always pumpkins.

Rebecca McMackin: Yeah. Yeah. But most of us do it as a way to get away from that culture of productivity as a break as a almost a form of self-care or even a practice like yoga and meditation. And so it's just it's a healthy way to reconnect to the earth, to reconnect to ourselves, connect to all the other organisms that are around us, and allows people to survive and thrive in this overly productive world. I feel like your work is similar in that we're all sort of caught up in this busyness that is hard to escape and it can be hard to remember that we

Catherine Price: need to have fun. Mhm.

Rebecca McMackin: And so do you see your work as as spreading like anti-productivity?

Catherine Price: Well, I mean again I think it depends what we think of the definition of productivity being but I do see fun as a respit from this obsession with productivity but I also see this conflict where people will start doing something for fun and then this need for productivity is so deeply ingrained they'll turn it into a side hustle or like as a personal example playing music. Like I don't care about performing music for an audience. I just really love playing music, but it's very hard to get adults to just get together to play instead of saying, "Okay, what's going to be the end product?" Like, "What's the goal? Are we going to produce something?" Even if it's something as, you know, not actually tangible, like a show.

Rebecca McMackin: Do you have suggestions for how to do that? I mean, I can't imagine calling my friends and being like, "It's bingo night or or something." But is that really as easy as it as it sounds?

Catherine Price: Well, I I don't think it's easy because I think we all are overscheduled and we have pretty deep issues when it comes to this like drive for quote productivity. And that is why it can be useful to recognize that fun can help you with these other more serious goals that you may have in your life. But I do think it is easier than we often assume and that if you start to think of fun as valuable then it becomes also easier to take the steps to make it happen. And I remember, for example, like when I gave a talk once, a young woman coming up to me after my talk and she was saying, "You know, I've had this taco Tuesday night with my friends for years." And I knew I loved it, but I didn't really realize how valuable it was. I didn't really realize it was almost like a sacred ritual that I have with my friends because it's the time where we let down our guard and we actually connect with each other and we really catch up. And it's kind of a silly concept, you know, taco Tuesdays, but actually it's one of my favorite moments of the whole week. And it's a break from all the pressure I put myself under and it's a time to connect with the people I care about. So I think that it's not as hard as you can have these rituals that aren't that hard to establish that then take on this greater meaning. But I do think that given our cultural obsession with productivity and efficiency and all that like we do need to step back and say I'm going to carve out time for this.

Rebecca McMackin: All right. What's one thing people should incorporate to have a healthier and happier life?

Catherine Price: H I mean I think everybody everyone should grow tomatoes and milkweed. Everybody. Um

Rebecca McMackin: tell me more.

Catherine Price: I think it is such a small gesture. Um but it really can change people's lives. Uh growing tomatoes, you can't buy tomatoes as good as you can grow them. They're just absolutely amazing. And so you really grow them for yourself, for your family, for your friends. And growing milkweed is an offering and a way to give back to the many organisms around you who are struggling really. And so I think that process right now when I look at humanity in general, it really does seem like people feel isolated and uh even sometimes alienated from the natural world. And that sort of gesture, it's a very small gesture of providing a gift back to that natural world um can be just a very hopeful, very gentle even form of activism for people to uh help create the world that they want to see for the future. It's really and then and then to be able to watch that, to be able to eat those tomatoes, to be able to see who visits those milkeed flowers is really just absolutely incredible.

Rebecca McMackin: That's inspiring.

Catherine Price: Absolutely. There's this bumper sticker that I see sometimes that says, "Planting a garden means believing in tomorrow." And it's so cheesy, but also very sweet and very true. There's this element of you're helping cultivate the future that you want to create for future generations. You're helping to literally grow that future. And I think at a time where so many pe people are having trouble even imagining the future and the future is very uncertain and scary, it can be a pretty radical act to say, I'm going to create this myself. I'm going to go out and do it myself.

Rebecca McMackin: I'm curious about how you would encourage people to be happier and healthier.

Catherine Price: I think in many ways I love the gardening idea. I also think just prioritizing fun and that we often think that fun is frivolous or a waste of time or we think it's irresponsible to prioritize fun in this crazy world that we're living in with so many serious problems. But if you are having fun then you're filling yourself up with energy. You become much more equipped to deal with hard things in your own life and you also become a source of energy for other people and it gives you energy to do stuff to help the world at large. You know, if you're sitting on the couch just doom scrolling the news, like you actually can't even plant a garden. You're not going to play that milkweed because all you're doing is filling your mind with really overwhelming information. And you can make an argument that it's important to stay informed, but at what point does just cross the line to being obsessed and putting stuff that you have no control over into your head? So, I think making a conscious effort to create better boundaries with content like that and say, "What would fill me up, you know, what would light me up?" Because the more we nourish ourselves, the more we can give to others and also the more we'll enjoy our own lives, which we're allowed to do.

Rebecca McMackin: Do you differentiate between fun as this sort of distinct activity where you're going and doing a fun thing or do you think that it's more important or perhaps both that people should try to create fun in the actions that they're already having?

Catherine Price: I think that I would say both, but I always like to distinguish or point out that I think that fun is a feeling. It's not a particular activity. So my definition of fun is that it's the confluence of three different factors. Playfulness, connection, and flow. And each of those is wonderful for us on their own, but when all three are together, it's this magical state of fun. And I think that you can create it in two ways. One is to actually figure out your fun magnets, I call them. So figure out what the activities or the settings or the people the people are who are most likely to generate that feeling of fun for you and then carve out time in your busy schedule to prioritize those. Another way to approach it is to open yourself up to more spontaneous opportunities for fun where you're like, what could I do to make myself feel a little more connected right now or a little more in flow or add a bit of playfulness or delight to the situation? And another thing I like about defining fun as playful connected flow is what you're getting at, which is that if you have that definition in mind, you can bring a bit of that attitude to pre-existing situations. Even a work conversation, like even a Zoom call, you can still bring a little bit more levity or a little bit more connection with people. So, I think it's kind of a combination of things, but I think we focus a bit too much on the idea that it is a specific activity because that's when you get into the whole you have to spend a lot of money to have fun instead of recognizing there's opportunities around us all the time. And the story that I I always have in my mind when I think about that is a anecdote someone told me about his own memory of a moment that was really fun. This guy told me he spent 45 minutes sitting on a park bench with his nephew having a ton of fun simply trying to catch leaves as they fell off of a tree.

Rebecca McMackin: Oh, how lovely.

Catherine Price: Yeah. And I said to him, I was like, "Oh my goodness, you just made this very literal." Because I always say that, you know, there's opportunities for fun floating around us in the air. We just need to reach out and grab them. And here you are literally grabbing leaves and fun out of out of the air. Yeah. Um, so I was grateful to that man.

Catherine Price: How do you give up control?

Rebecca McMackin: I think we need to recognize that ultimately we're not that important. We're part of this bigger ecosystem. Us trying to cling to control isn't really probably going to help anyone, including ourselves. So, I think constantly reminding myself of that is really useful. Um, and also t

Catherine Price: Yeah. And so this is not exactly an answer to that question, but I have noticed the times for me in which I have the most fun are the moments in which I've given up control.

Rebecca McMackin: I mean I I couldn't agree more. I feel like control can really be a burden.

Catherine Price: Yeah. Right. And that that it really starts with recognizing that and and the relief that can come when you do uh not when you give up control.

Rebecca McMackin: or just giant trees.

Catherine Price: I didn't know where I thought you were going with that, but it wasn't with old trees. Okay.

Rebecca McMackin: It's always always going towards trees. Yeah. Um but there is a 400y old white oak in a cemetery in the Bronx. Really?

Catherine Price: Really?

Rebecca McMackin: This tree is massive. is just humongous and it's really obvious when you visit this tree who the superior being is. It's like I always want to bring an offering or something like that and it is so relaxing. It is so just it's sort of like looking at a mountain or a canyon or the sky to feel that smallalness and that insignificantness and it's yeah it's just a relief and I think that process of giving up control can really start with just feeling that smallness in front of things that are large.

Catherine Price: Yes, it feels really good.

Catherine Price: Yeah. All right. What does play mean to you?

Rebecca McMackin: Oh, such a tough one. Um, I uh struggle. I struggle with this. I have to admit. I uh I have a 12-year-old and so a lot of times I think about play as what I see my child doing and what I see other kids doing, but when it comes to adults playing, I struggle.

Catherine Price: I am Yeah, I'm with you on that. I think it's really hard to define play and especially for adults. I think I would say it's doing things for the fun of it, doing enjoyable things for the sake of doing them without necessarily needing the outcome to be a particular way. I found it useful to think about this is actually kind of tying back to how do you let go of control? Actually, just putting together is that if you think about a lot of situations that generate fun, like playing a sport or playing a game, the reason that you can have fun is that you can kind of let go a little bit, but the reason you can let go is you know how you're supposed to behave, you know, like you there's rules to the game, so everyone knows what they can and can't do. And having that structure actually lets people relax and lower their guard and then have fun.

Rebecca McMackin: Yeah.

Catherine Price: Um which I find interesting to think about.

Rebecca McMackin: Yeah. It makes me think about roughousing. Watching these kids wrestle uh pretty aggressively sometimes worried me initially. I was like, "Oh no, don't get hurt." But then I realized that having boundaries around that play allows them to have. so much more fun in this really wild way that they're inclined towards, right? And um in many realms of school and home life, they're not allowed to behave like that. But once we set those parameters, they had so much more fun, right? And they would know if someone went too far. Like then it wouldn't be play, then it would be too rough. And like they kind of know that.

Catherine Price: Maybe play is also just doing things because they feel fun. One thing I learned in my research for my book is that across the animal kingdom, scientists are observing play in a lot of creatures you might not expect. Bumblebees. Bumblebees are like so playful. There was a great study um where they like had all these little bumblebees and these little wooden balls and they had this path towards sugar water, and the bumblebees would just roll the balls for fun.

Rebecca McMackin: Just for fun.

Catherine Price: I love that.

Rebecca McMackin: When you look at bumblebees and you think about them as pollinators, they are unusually smart and they like puzzles. There's generalist flowers. If you think of a sunflower, right? It's really open and the pollen and the nectar are really accessible. You could be anyone and pollinate that. But then there are flowers that are really complex, like figworts or legumes that are like puzzles and you have to crawl in and you have to leverage something or open something up. And bumblebees are excellent at that. They can they can literally unscrew a bottle. There's a a research study showing that bumblebees can figure out how to unscrew a bottle to get to food.

Catherine Price: right? Right. Yeah. No, I totally agree. I did not know that. I'm imagining little like escape rooms for bumblebees now.

Rebecca McMackin: I think that's like a whole field of research.

Catherine Price: You heard it here first.

Rebecca McMackin: Yeah. Okay.

Rebecca McMackin: All right. In a world designed to make everything as easy as possible, why is friction an important thing to incorporate into your life?

Catherine Price: Well, I think the first thing is to say, well, what what actually is easy? And then I would say the reason that friction is so important is because a lot of the things that are really important for us are not easy. Like getting together with friends or like allowing your kids to go play together without adult supervision. Like, these are not easy. What's easy is to spend a lot of time on products whose designers make money when you spend a lot of time on them. Mhm. It's very easy to scroll through social media. It's very easy to stay on the news, you know. So, I think that the first thing is to say, well, what what actually is easy? And then I would say the reason that friction is so important is because a lot of things that we really want to do have a high barrier to entry um but then I would also say that it's really important because right now we're in a very lopsided situation where you do have huge companies that are hiring the best behavioral scientists and designers in the world to make their products as addictive as possible and to reduce friction as much as possible. And so if you don't intentionally introduce friction between you and your devices, you don't stand a chance. It's just not an even fight. But also make sure that you put something on your bedside table that you want to do. Reduce friction for the things you want to spend time on and increase friction for the things you want to spend less time on.

Rebecca McMackin: I'm I'm inspired to throw my phone out of my bedroom. We'll see if that actually happens.

Catherine Price: Just get an alarm clock.

Rebecca McMackin: Okay. All right. I do think that when I think about the world right now, it really seems hard. Like it seems like there's more friction than um that we have to deal with just to go grocery shopping um that haven't been there in the past. So So yeah, I also would push back on the premise.

Rebecca McMackin: Right. All right. Where should someone start if they want to bring a little more wildness into their life?

Catherine Price: I mean, I I always think people should grow plants. Everyone Everyone should grow plants. If they live inside, you can grow house plants. They're amazing. And I think that process again, it's an offering, right? It's not so much about you as something that you are giving back to the other earthlings. How about you? What do you think?

Rebecca McMackin: How to bring wildness into your life. I think that rebelling a bit is what I would say to that when I talk to people about their past fun experiences. It's often something slightly rebellious. And I think that that is so important and it reminds us of what makes us alive. And I would say that it's a very similar thing as to cultivating habitat. Yeah. When I think that that connection to other creatures is really really central to a lot of the isolation and loneliness that people feel like we're the only living things on this earth. And to realize that we're actually surrounded by song birds who are saying things to each other. Sometimes we can even understand those things. Like there's a bird outside of my house that tells me every time that there's a raptor around, right? And so to have that communication is just wild. If you have a lawn and if you live in a place with a lawn, take a little bit of that lawn away and plant those flowers there. Lawns are so fundamentally about control. They are literally a crew cut, right? It's a crew cut that is happening um to the earth over and over in this very resource-intensive way.

Catherine Price: I love that as a concrete suggestion for how to let go of control. Let go of some of your lawn.

Rebecca McMackin: Yeah, just a little corner. You can start really small. There's this whole punk rock movement right now of kill your lawn and uh it's cool. I support it because it shouldn't just be the default of every single landscape. I think a lot of people have lawn because they don't know what else to do with land or they are scared that if they let it go, it's going to turn into snakes.

Catherine Price: Really? Straight to the snakes. straight to snakes.

Rebecca McMackin: But that also makes me think of like the lawn as a play space like what we were talking about before where a lawn, you know, if you ask people what they use their lawn for, they're like, "Well, the kids play on it." And so, yeah, keep that space. Keep the space where you actually throw a frisbee or have a picnic. But all the rest of it that you're just mowing for the sake of mowing, get rid of it. Yeah. Yeah. It really is a space that people get to enjoy it. It's like the habitat for people, right? And so, as I said, it's much better to see lawn as an area rug rather than wall-to-wall carpet. It's just that little space that you need, and then you can seed the rest of that for wildlife.

Catherine Price: And like, who wants wall-to-wall carpet these days? That's very 1970s.

Rebecca McMackin: True.

Catherine Price: Thank you, Catherine. That was so lovely. And I learned a lot, and I'm inspired to get rid of my phone and have more fun.

Rebecca McMackin: Thank you, Rebecca. I am going to plant a tomato and some milkweed.