Sunday, January 16, 2011

Nature

I’m trying to get back into keeping a journal. I was writing about the church callings I’ve had, and an excerpt about the whole Scouting thing seemed relevant here (as much as anything does):

Nature is cool. It’s beautiful. It’s relaxing. It’s fascinating and inspiring to learn about and observe. But it is also subversive. You can enjoy nature for a few hours, but before long you have to eat. You need to find restroom facilities. And eventually you need to sleep and stay warm. If you have to stay in nature as you deal with these issues, a disturbing thing happens to you: you start to become part of nature. It affects what you eat. It affects how you smell. Things like what socks you’re wearing and how long your facial hair is and what you’ve touched since you last encountered hand soap start to demand your attention. In short, you sort of start to resemble an animal. Now, maybe that’s an overstatement. Lots of people like “roughing it.” But I don’t.

Of course, that’s totally unreasonable. Most people in the world’s history have never had the luxury of running water or food options to begin with, so there’s no reason why I should feel like they’re necessities. And of course there is lots of value in Scout activities beyond just being outside. So I’m not trying to use my aversion to lack of running water to get out of or discourage campouts. I’m just saying that I don’t appreciate nature’s tendency to try to assimilate me whenever I start to get close to it. I’ll have to keep my guard up.

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