Intuition vs. Anxiety, Gen Z Foragers, and Nimrod Workman

Gen Z is discovering that intuition is not the same as anxiety, poor dead Nimrod Workman never stood a chance, and the foraging trend is more than just a recession indicator. 

Song of the Week – “serena joy” 

Olivia Rodrigo dropped a non-album track called “serena joy.” The song is named after a character in the book-turned-TV show, The Handmaid’s Tale. In the song, Serena Joy regrets her role in a fictional patriarchal culture, with lyrics like, “If they do it to them / They’ll do it to you.” Rodrigo performed the song at Daisy Chain Fields, her sold-out feminist music festival in Irvine, California, last week. She shared that a portion of the proceeds from “serena joy” will go to the Daisy Chain Fields Fund, which promises to “advance and advocate for women and girls.” It’s a noble aim, albeit with mixed execution: the fund benefits several nonprofits, some which support women and children in need, but also including abortion providers.

And now for our three conversations..

1. Gut Feelings

What it is: Searches for “intuition” spiked by 40% this year, as young people seek to determine the difference between healthy warning instincts and anxious, intrusive thoughts. 

Why it’s spiritual: Earlier this year, a small survey of 2,000 Americans suggested that Gen Z is the most likely generation to see themselves as “psychic.” But, as we reported then, 35% of all respondents in that survey said they don’t have a strong understanding of how to tell the difference between intuition and anxiety. It’s a popular curiosity, with over 1.5 million TikTok posts tagged #intuition, many of those exploring the difference between intuition (which is seen by posters as true, trustworthy, and positive) and anxiety (which is seen as exaggerated, fear-based, and negative). #intuitiontest posts are an entire genre on the platform, with viewers encouraged to play games where they guess which closed hand holds a crystal or which facedown card is the Queen of Hearts. The spiritual connotations of these videos don’t typically point toward the Holy Spirit’s leading. Instead, most of the conversation about the concept is connected to manifesting and even witchcraft.

Continue the conversation: Can intuition be something negative? Can anxiety ever be something positive? 

2. The Late (Great?) Nimrod Workman

What it is: A coal miner, union activist, and folk singer who lived from 1895 to 1994 recently earned a new title: viral meme.

Why it’s typical internet: The phrase “Imagine being named Dumb*** Wagecuck” kicked off a string of memes about the late Nimrod Workman. Some seemed to see the idea of working long, hard hours until the end of your life to be amusing and pathetic. Videos of Mr. Workman singing the Appalachian folk song “Oh Death” and doing the crab-walk added to an overall sense of tragic absurdity (despite how being able to crab-walk at 88 is incredible). Others came to Workman’s defense, in their own way. In response to the criticism that “Nimrod Workman has no aura,” one X user said, “Explain this then,” and posted an image of the man kicked back in a rocking chair, smoking a cigarette.

Continue the conversation: Does the idea of working hard your entire life sound admirable or more like a mistake? 

3. On Berries and Berry 

What it is: On top of the resurgence of other so-called “analog habits”—things like knitting, journaling, and listening to vinyl—some Gen Zers are now also taking an interest in foraging.

Why it’s appealing: Ali Pantony from Dazed interviewed a handful of Gen Z foragers and asked why they found the practice appealing. Some saw it as a way to get a break from their indoor, screen-based jobs. Others saw it as a way to save money on food and, sometimes, medicine. Still others saw it as a way to ground themselves in nature, practice mindfulness, and reconnect with the earth. For some, foraging might sound like playing Russian roulette, given the possibility of mistaking poisonous berries or mushrooms for something edible. But many modern people also arguably live at a too-alienated remove from God’s creation. Perhaps we have something important to learn here.  

Let’s translate this one further…

One of my earliest nature-related memories was of my mother telling me not to walk barefoot in the grass—because if I did, I might get a hookworm. 

I do not know whether this is a thing that most children are told; I do know that the story is representative of the general feeling of nature-alienation I have had for most of my life. 

I do not even want to walk past bees. All of my attempts to sit under trees with journals and/or books have been short-lived; after about three minutes, my skin starts to crawl, and I can’t shake the thought that it’s because some poisonous spider and/or troop of fire ants is making its evil ascent up my leg. 

There are other unflattering nature stories that I could share. But really, all this is just prologue for a piece of sad news about a man who probably would not have resonated with anything I just wrote: on August 31st, the poet, novelist, farmer, and Christian conservationist Wendell Berry passed away. 

Berry would have resonated with the concept of foraging. He advised people to find a place and be true to it. He believed that the best work of our lives would be the work of one’s own hands. And he believed that the natural world was a portrait of the living God. 

One of Berry’s best-known poems, “The Peace of Wild Things,” depicts the way that Berry saw the natural world—seeing something in it that most of the time, I have struggled to see:

“When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

There is something about this poem that feels truer than my own experience. After all, God—infinitely wiser and the truest source of comfort—is the creator of this profound, biodiverse place. The air-conditioned indoors that I have loved and preferred is merely the creation of my fellow human beings. Surely I have been in the wrong! 

I both deeply admire and somewhat fear the idea of foraging for food. But the connection to the land that it represents—which Berry wrote so passionately about—seems like a way to embrace the fact that we, too, are ultimately God’s creation. As Psalm 103:15-17 puts it: “The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”

But of course, that’s not where the passage ends. It goes on to say, “But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children.”

Rest in peace, Wendell.

For more context and nuance, check out our Roundtable podcast on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In the meantime, here are three questions to help you continue the conversation with your teens: 

Parenting together,

Evan Barber and the Axis Team

In Other News…

1. People on TikTok are wondering if their boyfriends can read. A new trend involves women filming their boyfriends as they attempt to say words like “epitome,” “fuchsia,” or “paradigm” correctly. 
2. Pumpkin spice is over. Matcha and chai seem to be outperforming the once-beloved fall beverage. Other novelty flavors like miso-caramel, brown-butter honey and smoked butterscotch are also crowding out the once-beloved PSL, according to The Washington Post. 
3. Searches for CD players are up 96% since July, The Guardian reports. Demand for CD recordings of artists like Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande, and Olivia Dean is driving the skyrocketing demand. 
4. Professional gamers, also called esports players, are dealing with injuries similar to those of assembly-line workers: hand and wrist pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and tendonitis. 
5. A new term just dropped. A “meat proxy” is someone who shares AI-generated text with somebody without reading it—operating as the go-between for the other person and the AI system, according to Business Insider (paywall). 

PS: Know someone who could use our conversation starters with their teens? Share the CT with a friend!