Spending 40 consecutive nights in an old growth forest. That is the plan. Opening myself to whatever happens in those long dark hours as I lie awake, thinking, searching, absorbing, being. Hoping to experience the essential, and perhaps the transcendent. For a fuller explanation of the plan, as well as its logistical details, please see Seeking the Essential- Part 1.
So here is the thing about ticks. They are everywhere. Especially this time of year, the warmth of spring days drawing them forth from dormancy. I knew that. As a kid I spent countless summer days in the strip of forest that bisected my neighborhood, my friends and I building dams in the creek, catching frogs and feeling them alive and trembling within our closed hands, gathering wood for tree houses that became ground shelters when we didn’t have hammer and nails, daring each other to drink from a small spring flowing from a patch of reddish earth, and generally doing everything that kids do in forests when left to their own devices and imagination. The ticks loved us. Crawled right up on us. And we didn’t care, not in the least. At the end of every day each of us simply went back to his home and did a tick check before taking a bath, before they could burrow heads beneath flesh. Most normal and natural thing possible, it seemed. Never gave it a second thought.
And throughout my adult life, hiking and camping in forests and elsewhere, ticks have been an accepted part of existence. Although they are scarier now. Not because they themselves are creepy little crawlies, which they are, but because of the diseases they carry. Get the wrong tick bite, and physical health could be impacted permanently. So when planning these 40 nights in the forest, even when trying to minimize modern objects, I decided that tick repellent is a necessity. I’m all for lying in a cool dark forest for nights on end, but have no desire to become sick for decades. I despise artificial, chemical substances, so chose a diluted cedar oil spray. Every evening upon arrival at my little camp site, I spray the ground all around. And I do so again every morning before leaving. Seems to keep the ticks away, while providing a pleasant aroma. Though one that must slightly confuse the indigenous creatures.
I mention all of this in part because I realized that I forgot to include the cedar oil spray in Seeking the Essential- Part 1, where I listed the items used on my nights in the forest. So, the accurate list is: tent, blanket, knife, small air horn, bottle of water, and cedar oil spray.
Thinking about ticks reminds me of people’s reactions. Mention ticks to most people these days, and they are so beyond horrified that they are sometimes rendered speechless. That anyone might venture forth into nature, risk catching a tick, is beyond their comprehension. I might as well suggest that they dive into raw sewage. I understand that someone unaccustomed to ticks might be a little wary, but the revulsion is a bit odd, and curious. Bug repellents exist. They work quite well. So at some point it seems that the revulsion isn’t directed towards ticks alone, but towards the entire idea of interacting with the natural world. A world shaggy and verdant and wild and untamed, with all sorts of creatures, large and small, living their lives. This loathing has apparently been increasing for some time.
Back when I graduated from college and got my first non-minimum-wage job, I bought my first house, in a typical middle-class suburban neighborhood. Moved into the place in July. My first weeks there, I received the impression that the neighborhood housed no children. Perhaps all of the residents were like me, young, newly employed, just starting out, and childless. Didn’t think anything further of it, until the first day of school in early September. I pulled out of my garage in the morning, on my way to work, and was immediately shocked. Hordes of kids waited at all of the bus stops. Hundreds of them throughout the neighborhood. During July and August I hadn’t seen any of them playing outside anywhere, so they must have remained concealed indoors. That is when I first realized that something was changing. Those kids were only ten to fifteen years younger than I. But at their age we all played outside all summer long. Good luck trying to keep us inside. We would have rampaged like little lords of the flies. (If our parents had allowed such behavior.)
This isn’t nostalgia, a wistful meditation, but a realization that children have changed. Drastically. Unnaturally. Since that morning I pulled out of my garage, the devolution has accelerated rapidly, by orders of magnitude. So many children would rather lounge around indoors, staring at screens, eating processed substances, while exerting essentially no physical activity. (And those children who are physically exuberant are often medicated to dullness, as if exuberance were a behavioral problem.) This is horrifying in itself, inert lives lived by kids. I blame not them, but the parents who allow the inactivity. But it is even more appalling for society, because these children are its future. Children who have never played. Play—natural, normal, self-directed play—teaches so many necessary skills. Sneakily, surreptitiously so, because the kid thinks he is just having fun. But kids now reach adulthood without ever having solved one single problem. Persevered over a length of time to succeed at something. Strategized to accomplish a goal. Used their imaginations. Learned to negotiate within a group. Felt real disappointment that isn’t immediately smoothed away by a hovering adult. These things, and so many others. Skills never learned, experiences never assimilated.
These aren’t new ideas. All thinking people have recognized them for decades. But lying there, star-gazing on a cool night that is rapidly turning cold, I feel a bone-deep sense of sorrow. For those kids. They have no idea what they are missing. They have no idea how thrilling and messy and contentious and wondrous childhood can be. Should be. A raggedy childhood replete with skinned knees and dirt-soiled clothes, flushed cheeks and bright, wily eyes, all sorts of schemes formulated in the moment before bursting forth into activity, the occasional awkward punch thrown when tempers flare briefly. Getting ticks and leeches and mosquito bites, without caring.
To be very clear, there are indeed still children out there who experience normal childhoods. They do exist. But their numbers are dwindling. More typical? I was talking with a young man when he was about 14 years old. When he realized that not very long ago kids didn’t have smartphones, or online multiplayer video games, or every last movie and show streaming on demand, his expression changed to a blend of disgust and confusion. And he said, “life must have been soooo boring.” Fast forward. He is now 30. Though he has a decent work-from-home job and receives good evaluations, he and his wife spend their spare time sitting on the couch playing those online multiplayer games or watching videos. This, they think, is the pinnacle of a happy existence. They have no hobbies, don’t exercise, pursue no activities beyond the apartment, have no plans to do…anything. Except sit on that couch. Slowly spreading.
Which all leads to the questions, what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to live a good life? We have all been graced with talents, so shouldn’t we use them? (These aren’t questions to be answered in a newsletter. Volumes could be written.)
Not young adults and kids alone. In my current neighborhood the trend is visible all around. The avoidance of the natural world. The avoidance of even being outside. Cars pull out of garages, windows closed, beeline to work or shopping, drivers hurrying inside to climate controlled buildings, before returning home to garages, doors closing behind them. Windows of houses are never open. Air conditioning or heat runs at all times, as decks and patios slowly molder. While lawn services arrive to cut grass and trim shrubbery. This doesn’t describe everyone, clearly, but it is astonishing how many people are repulsed by the idea of being a little too hot or a little too cold. Feeling humidity. A few lazy summer insects buzzing around them. Shoveling snow as breath frosts the air. Simply being outside, doing anything.
From what I gather, many of my readers are welcome exceptions to this rule. You are strange, wild creatures. Thank you.
These are all little bursts of thoughts, strung together, touching on a larger societal issue. The meaning of progress. What is progress? The underlying and unthinking assumption seems to be that the farther humans remove themselves from nature, the more we are protected and isolated from it, the more that comforts wrap us in a cozy haze of lethargy, the less we must do physically, then the more advanced we are. That is progress. Walls, roofs, and windows, creating barriers, as we sit. Sit and sit, as the air conditioning kicks on.
And then there is the newer development. Living estranged from the natural world is bad enough, but now so many people don’t live much in the real world at all. They exist in online realms. They create their identities, their sense of being, within a digital realm that isn’t real. They have replaced real life with fantasy, which exists nowhere but in their owns minds and in strings of ones and zeros. Turn off the electricity, and their lives vanish.
The question can be asked, isn’t this progress? In conquering the natural world, obviating it in our lives, haven’t we succeeded at the game of survival, which is the goal of all animals? This argument can be made, and it has some validity. But it misses the fundamental.
We are an intrinsic part of creation. We are inextricably linked to it. This planet began forming about 4.5 billion years ago, and has slowly evolved, everything existing on it evolving along with it. The earth is now one massive, complex, interlocking ecosystem. We were created to live within it. But when we isolate ourselves from the natural world, when we set it apart as something remote and alien, to be avoided as much as possible, we are damaging a natural balance. Damaging to the planet, because in separating ourselves from it, we cease to respect, value, and conserve it. Which inevitably leads to exploitation and destruction. And damaging to people, because separating ourselves from our natural environment causes a cognitive dissonance, which is evident in so many people. Other factors certainly exist—lack of purpose, discipline, faith, and structure, for example—but this separation contributes to many negative tendencies. Anger, resentment, entitlement, narcissism, sloth, and ignorance. The person as a person is unstable, because a crucial component is missing. He is no longer entirely natural.
Back to the question, haven’t we succeeded at the game of survival? At first glance, maybe. But not really. We possess many things that make life easier. But most of us haven’t created those things, and we haven’t earned them. They simply exist, as if by magic. And they can all disappear in an instant, such as during a natural disaster. If things ever break really bad in this society, causing amenities to vanish, most people are going to fail miserably. Catastrophically. Not very many people know how to acquire food and water. The country boys and girls are going to do the best, those who know how to hunt and fish and forage, and plant gardens. Those same folks who are scorned by the so very elite sector. In the game of survival, which of these two groups is more robustly human?
I am in no way suggesting that we all live in shelters in the forest, nor like the ancient desert monks in caves or rock hollows. I am simply suggesting a balance. And a recognition. That the natural world is crucial to who we are, and that engaging with it more regularly can only nourish us as people. Even small interactions can make a profound difference. Every morning (except for these 40 days), usually early morning as first light glows on the eastern horizon, dark sky and stars still arching overhead, I walk out onto the deck. Regardless of weather. In my jammies, usually barefoot, I stand there and absorb the dawning of a new day. Breathing in the air, gazing skyward. Shadowy trees rising around me. There is nothing else quite like it. Sometimes it rains on me, sometimes it pours. Sometimes snowflakes melt one after another on my skin. Sometimes my fingers and toes redden at the sharp bite of cold. Sometimes I leave bare footprints in frost. And sometimes a morning is so lovely, the air at that magically soft temperature, the scent of verdant land pervading existence, as birds sing to the dawn and small creatures emerge from warm burrows, that it seems that nothing in life could ever be more perfect than those moments.
That is a good way to start a new day. Melding one small life with something much greater.
(Thinking about ticks leads to this, apparently.)
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Previous 40-Night Newsletters:
Part 4- Beneath the Stars, the Nearly Infinite Cosmos