Insights into Outdoor Experiences

by Martijn Brakenhoff

Index:

Abstract

Introduction

1. Ions and vitamin D

2. A Place for Real Experiences

3. Always in Risk, Yet Never in Danger

4. A place for Reflection

Conclusion

Endnotes

Abstract

After hitting a low point in my study I decided to take some time off and make a big bicycle trip through the forests of Sweden and Denmark. Despite all the challenges I faced during this trip it sincerely lifted my spirits. This made me wonder what it actually was that the trip offered me that I missed in my daily life. I decided to analyse my own adventure by comparing it to similar experiences of others. Afterwards I reinforced my findings with already written texts and research. Does an outdoor experience contain something that can increase the quality of our lives?

The success of my trip lies in the feeling of control it gave me. Our modern lives are filled with anxieties, that are difficult to get a grip on. My outdoor experience countered this feeling of helplessness. The overcoming of the mental and physical challenges I had to face during my journey boosted my confidence immensely. I named this experience and similar experiences, real experiences. These are experiences that seem scary and challenging at first but end up to be full of learning, joy and personal growth.

Introduction

After learning the disappointing news that I had to redo the final year of my graphic design study I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. It felt like I spent too much time in school the past three years and motivation was running low, I drastically needed a reboot. I figured a good break and some time away from the school environment would do me good. I had been fantasizing about making an epic bicycle trip to some place beautiful and remote. Now, with half a year of nothing in front of me there were no more excuses and I decided to make it happen. I took a job to save up for some equipment and eventually scavenged all the gear together that I was going to need for my journey. The destination was from the beginning very clear: Sweden. I have never been to Sweden before, but in my mind it is a land of wilderness, filled with endless pine forests, enormous lakes, and pristine nature. I roughly came up with a route that I wanted to cycle. A line that led me from Germany via Denmark to Sweden with as final destination Stockholm, and from the Swedish capital back home.

For five weeks I was by myself, sleeping on a thin matt, in a tent somewhere in the forests of Sweden. I cycled for hours every day. The repetitive movements I made while peddling resulted in a knee injury, I was physically exhausted and was thinner that I had ever been in my adult life. On paper it doesn’t sound that relaxing and despite all that I felt like I was reborn. My mind felt clear and I felt better than I had felt in a long time. Ever since I got back I can’t help to wonder why? I never really camped much before, not even as a child. My parents are very much into travelling but always liked some kind of luxury when going on holidays. After all you go on vacation to relax and not to put yourself through stress and discomfort. Why did I feel this strong urge to immerse myself in nature? Maybe it was just because it was an escape from the troubles I had back home, but I feel there is more to it. I could have picked a beach on some tropical island.

I would like to know what we can find in these kind of outdoor experiences that we are missing in our modern daily lives. We live in a world in which new inventions are being introduced everyday to make our lives more pleasurable, easier and healthier. So why did it feel so good?

Ions and vitamin D

After doing a quick search on Google I found multiple researches that were conducted by multiple institutions that proved that nature is in fact healthy. All these studies concluded that being exposed to nature in one way or the other is healthy for a human being.

In the study Levels of Nature and Stress Response they let volunteers stay in environments with different levels of nature, A forest, a municipal park, and an exercise facility in an urban environment. Before and after the visits the amount of stress in their bodies was tested. They concluded that vististation to locations with the highest level of nature had the most impact regarding the reduction of stress.[1]

It is also know that spatial openness can help with the healing of eyesight. In Europe, half of the people in their twenties have bad eyesight and the numbers are increasing. The cause is the staring at objects that are close to you, like smartphones. The eyes have to put a lot of effort into focusing and the blue light that the screen is radiating makes it even harder. If you stare into the distance the lens of your eye can relax again. Therefore natural environments are good for your eyes because they often possess spatial openness.[2]

Spending time in the sun is important because the sun is our main source of vitamin D. Which we need to extract calcium from the food we eat. Which in turn is necessary to maintain healthy bones and teeth. Vitamin D also contributes in maintaining a healthy immune system and the use of our muscles.[3]

It is proven that going to the beach has multiple health benefits. The sound of ebbing and flowing of the seawater helps relaxing our brain. The smell of water is also a factor that helps to stay in this meditative state. Studies suggest that the air close to places like the ocean and waterfalls are filled with negative ions. These oxygen atoms have an extra electron which could be beneficial to treat symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. [4]

So I there are many studies conducted that conclude that nature is healthy for mind and body. There are a couple of hypotheses that explain the positive effects.[5] Natural environments have been linked to the Attention Restoration Theory (ART). The Art theory says that natural environments possess a particular properties that promote restoration from attention fatigue. Similar to ART, the psycho-evolutionary theory (PET), says that natural environments are excellent for reducing stress levels because they offer specific attributes like water and spatial openness. these attributes are said to have big influence on us because we evolved in similar surroundings.

Although this all these examples are all very interesting they don’t really satisfy me. I’m not doubting the integrity of these researches. I’m sure the ions in the air contribute to my health and that the reason why lies deep into our mind and body, But I’m not a biologist and I would like an answer that is more comprehensible. Besides, these studies only partially give me an answer to my question. I had quite a lot of these soothing moments during my trip that were very relaxing and filled with sunshine and joy. But as I mentioned in earlier, my nature experience had some moments of discomfort as well. In this essay I want to continue to investigate what made me like the trip so much. I will do this by analysing the nature experiences of others and compare theirs to my own. In turn I will dive into the theoretical research to strengthen my findings.

A place for real experiences

Two friends of mine, that I know since high school, made a similar trip to Sweden shortly after I finished mine. They didn’t travel around like I did, instead they picked a place to park their car and hiked into the forest until they found a suitable place to make camp. They were inspired to do so by the many survival videos they gleefully watched on YouTube.

I’m very well aware of the Youtube survival community. I have been captivated by the fenomenon for a long time, and have watched many of these videos myself before I left. In these videos people show tutorials on how to survive in the wild with minimal tools and resources. One of the most well known youtube channels is Primitive Technology in which a man is making tools with his bare hands, only using resources he finds in the nature around him. Another good friend of mine showed me Erik Normak. Normak is a Swedish filmmaker that documents his travels in the Swedish outback. His videos rapidly became some of my favourites. He shows the extreme and isolated landscapes he resides in. In his videos is rarely spoken in, only showing what he experiences. The result are beautiful landscapes with the sounds of roaring winds or the singing of birds in the background.

Some of these videos have millions of viewers. The most popular video of Primitive technology called Primitive Technology: Tiled Roof Hut has more than 65 million views. It seems hard to believe that all these people that are watching for inspiration to eventually go have a similar experience themselves.

For some reason these videos are very relaxing and I often watch them while lying in bed under a big pile of blankets, with a warm cup of tea. A writer from the blog ribbon-farm classifies this and similar activities as part of Domestic Cozy. He describes Domestic Cozy as An upcoming Attitude that can increasingly be seen in the Gen Z. It is the opposite of what he calls Premium Mediocrity which is as the name implies: something that is mediocre but that is trying to be premium. Domestic Cozy is the desire to stay inside and and engage in relaxing and comforting activities. These activities can be anything as long as they give you comfort. Rather than showing the world what you did or made it is kept in privacy. Examples of Domestic Cozy are playing Minecraft and the knitting of drone-sweaters.[6]

“Domestic Cozy finds its best expression in privacy, among friends, rather than in public, among strangers. It prioritizes the needs of the actor rather than the expectations of the spectator. It seeks to predictably control a small, closed environment rather than gamble in a large, open one.”[7]

I interviewed one of my survival friends and asked him why he watched the videos. He replied that it is satisfying to watch someone struggle while you are in a comfortable environment yourself. It gives you a malicious pleasure, but even more It gives you the satisfaction of making or achieving something without actually doing anything for it. It is as if you feed on the experiences of others. I experienced that this can become quite addictive. I can sometimes spend hours behind my laptop watching these videos to give myself a quick rushes of satisfaction and accomplishment. But somehow it is never enough. In the end you just feel useless and a little tricked. It is a like a drug, you keep watching while you never get that full rush of the complete experience and you end up with a depressing feeling wishing you had spend your time better. Watching others from the comfort of your home is, of course, fine. We all need some comfort after a long day at work. But can it possibly replace the real deal, the actual experience?

My friends decided (in contradiction to the most of the youtube survivalist watchers) to leave the comfort of their cozy home environments. They ended up staying in the forest for two full weeks, they built their own shelters and even fished to supply themselves with their own meals. Every couple days they would send me short updates on their whereabouts together with a picture. Each time looking more tired and more pale. The enthusiasm I found in the first messages slowly changed into complaining. When I asked how they liked it when they came back they told me it was horrible, being tired and hungry most of the time. Yet, when I asked him if he would ever do it ever again I got a convincing yes.

This is definitely something I can relate to. During my own trip I had multiple moments of discomfort and moments of supposed danger. Strangely enough these moments are the most memorable and valuable to me. Why are these “bad” experiences so strong?

The essay Bad is Stronger than Good says that bad events or experiences are in fact stronger than good. This is concluded after comparing multiple researches that were done on this topic. They found that bad experiences resulted in stronger emotional and physical response than good experiences with regard to things like health, social support, and learning.

Interestingly enough in many of the examined researches they found that these bad experiences had positive after effects. In learning they found that in multiple experiments that punishment (bad experiences) led to faster learning than reward (good experiences). It lead people to search for meaning in order to make sense of the bad experience, more than after a good experience. In another experiment they let people place bets on sport events in which they could either win or lose money. Afterwards the participants were asked their thoughts about the games they bet on. It turned out that the conversations of the people who lost money where significantly longer than from the people who won money. This could mean that there is a greater search for meaning for bad than good outcomes.[8]

These are some examples on how a bad experience can result into learning. However, When a bad experience is extremely strong it can result in trauma and it might be impossible to overcome its impact and scar you permanently. In my case the bad experience I endured on my trip I would describe as discomfort and were by no means traumatising.

A widely assumed explanation for this is that it is evolutionary. For example, an animal has more chance to survive if it is aware of dangerous situations (bad experiences). Also, it could prepare for similar (dangerous) experience to prevent from being hurt or killed. On the contrary, if an animal ignores a good event it might miss out on a moment of pleasure or advancement, but in the end it is less likely that something directly terrible will happen.[9]

During my research I came across a term called the Flow. Flow in psychology refers to a mental state in which a person is completely immersed into an activity. The state of flow is achieved when the balance of challenge and skill is right. If the activity is to easy you lose the state of flow. But if the activity is to hard you also lose the flow state.

"Flow also happens when a person's skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable, so it acts as a magnet for learning new skills and increasing challenges. If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills." [10]

The principles of the state of flow you can find back in a lot of things like sports but the principle you can also find back in video game design. To keep a game interesting for a player the game has to find a balance between challenge and skill level.

The reason why me and my friends liked the discomfort could be because the challenge of the endeavour helped to get us in our flow. Today we spend a lot of time behind our computers to engage in these fake experiences. Although they give us relaxation they do not really challenge us in any way, not mentally and definitely not physically. I’d like to argue that there is also a flow to life in general as well. Our nature experience gave us the challenge to bring back the flow in our lives. It is not the discomfort itself that is nice and memorable but rather the feeling afterwards. When the difficult situation passes there is a huge feeling of accomplishment and a bad experience becomes a learning experience. I felt a huge confidence boost after these moments that I have rarely felt in daily life.

Always in risk, yet never in danger

When looking into my direct surroundings to see if any of my friends and family has had similar outdoor experiences the first person that came to mind was my grandfather. My grandfather is 87 years old. He worked hard for his money as a car mechanic until his pension. He grew up on a farm in a time when life was more simple. In the sense that you work hard and you spend what you earned. It is hard to see that his perspective on everything that happens around him narrows and that he has trouble to understand how things work. He depends on the help of his kids (my mom and my aunts) to do his finances. It is understandable, but sometimes hard when he gets angry at them when something happens that he can’t understand and control. It must be incredibly hard for someone who is used to be the provider in the household to become a man who depends on the help of others. The only place where he seems at ease is his garden where he grows his own vegetables and plants.

Financially my grandparents don’t have to worry anymore, so that isn’t the reason why my grandfather is growing his plants. They can go to the supermarket around the corner and get all the vegetables they need. It is not because environmental reasons either, I know he uses poison to get rid of some weeds, and he often ventilates his opinion on how he thinks global warming is a nonsense on birthday parties. So there must be a different reason why despite his age he keeps going there. Of course it could just be a hobby to kill time, but I expect other reasons.

Although I am not an old man yet I can relate to his feeling of not being in control sometimes. Despite my efforts to be self sufficient I still feel very dependent on the help of others. My dad knows how to work with wood, he can fix the electricity in the house and much more. These kind of skills don’t get taught anymore. Before I went on my bicycle trip I could barely change my bike tire. It seems that we simply don’t understand the things we use anymore. One reason might be that we don’t learn about these practical skills, and a second reason is that a lot of the objects and devices we use are getting more complicated.

Companies seem determined to keep us form altering and fixing our own devices. In my life I’m super dependent on my laptop. I need it for school assignments, I use it to do my finances and to check my emails for both private and business matters. And I also use it for entertainment. When my laptop breaks it feel like my whole life's in disarray. I can’t do anything and Im not able to fix it by myself. If it breaks I have to bring it to the store for reparation.

In New York apartments the size of the kitchen is slowly shrinking due to the lack of living space in the city. The apartments that are being built are getting smaller and smaller and the size of the kitchen is the first thing that is being sacrificed. The article points out that it might be possible that eventually the kitchen will be completely terminated in future apartments and that most meals currently cooked at home will be instead ordered online and delivered. Food delivery apps are now in the top 40 most downloadable apps. They are immensely popular by millennials, who are three times more likely to order takeaway than their parents which might result in cooking slowly fading away.[11]

It is very likely that we are moving towards a future with self driving cars. Companies like Google, Tesla and Uber are pushing the innovations. Several auto and tech industry experts claim that it will take at least 12 more years before the self driving car will hit the roads, while Elon Musk the ceo of Tesla says the capability is there to have half a million self driving teslas on the road by the end of the year.[12] A poll conducted by Forbes in the United States shows that the 72% of participants are still afraid of the concept of the self driving car. Only 19% of the participants are saying to be comfortable with using self driving cars to transport their family and children.[13] It seems that soon we can or have to completely rely on technology for our transportation.

According to Harrari in his book Sapiens we used to know everything when we lived as hunter-gathers. We knew everything about the environment we lived in, the plants we could eat and the ones that were poisonous. where to find shelter etc. We were much more self sufficient. Today people that live in an industrial society don't have to know everything about their living environment to survive. We only have to know a small part of our relatively specialized tasks. As a collective we know much more now than in the past but as an individual we know way less about our living environment than our hunter gatherer ancestors.[14]

He explains that we as humans are still very much attached to our hunter gatherer-past. Our eating habits, our conflicts and our sexuality all derive from the time we survived by scavenging and foraging for food. According to Harari we were much better off as hunter gatherers than we are now. He explained that the pre agrarian age lasted around 10.000 years and had a very deep impact on our minds. The transition from a the pre agrarian age to the agrarian age where we live in now happen in a relatively short amount of time. As a result our minds are still in hunter gatherer mode. This, could explain for example, why we tend to gorge ourselves with calorie-rich food. It could also be and explanation why we tend to feel more attracted to natural environments. I have to say that I feel quite attracted to his ideas and his argumentation seems logical, however, like many of these hypotheses it is hard to prove. You can’t go back in time to check if the average neanderthal was happier than we are now.

The Unabomber, an elusive terrorist that send several homemade bombs to universities, airlines and computer stores more or less agrees with Harari’s vision. Form 1978 until 1995 he held the citizens of the USA in his grasp. After a major manhunt the perpetrator was caught and identified as the mathematician professor Theodore Kaczynski.[15]

Kaczynski was convinced that the technology wasn’t in humanity’s benefit at all and would ultimately mean the restriction of the freedom of men. He wrote a manifesto that the New York Times was forced to published or Kaczynski’s would continue with his bombing frenzy. In his manifesto named Industrial Society and It’s Future, Kaczynski goes deeper into his ideology. He explained that although most of the technological advancements initially bring good, but on the long run will often threaten our freedom very seriously. Take for example motorized transport. Initially cars brought only convenience: a faster way of transport. But the more popular the motorized transport became the more problems brought. It quickly became necessary to regulate their use extensively, especially in densely populated areas. Infrastructure had to be made to facilitate the growth of a cars. Now the cities are shaped to the motorized transport and as a result our jobs and shop are no longer on walking distance. and motorized transport is no longer a choice but a necessity. A similar example are security cameras, initially promised to make us feel saver and to keep an eye out for criminal activity, but now also used by companies and governments to monitor everyone and decreasing our privacy and therefore our freedom. [16]

“Freedom means being in control (either as an individual or as a member of a small group) of the life and death issues of one’s existence: food, clothing , shelter and defence against whatever threats there may be in one’s environment. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one’s own life.” [18]

He opted for a simpler life in which technology has no or a less significant role. To escape the technological world he withdrew himself back into nature and started living as a hermit in a cabin of his own design with no running water and no electricity in the forests of Montana. He learned himself survival skills in order to stay alive.

In the 1970’s George Gerbner came up with the cultivation theory. The cultivation theory states that the way we view our world is mainly influenced by television. Gerber Argued that the programs shown on television contain more violence than that actually exist in the real world. As a result people who watch a lot of televisions will believe that the likelihood that they will encounter or be involved in an act of violence is bigger than it actually is. These people are also more prone to mistrust fellow people because of this reason. Gerber called this phenomenon the mean-world syndrome.[18]

Dangers and fears are cultivated through the media and are less and less the outcome of direct experience. fear is decreasingly experienced first hand and increasingly experienced on a abstract level. In the past, people have associated fears with a clear and formulated threat, for example, death, the fear of a specific enemy or the fear of hunger. The source of the fear was defined as the object of fear. The problem was not the feeling of fear, but the things that were feared. Today the act of fearing itself is being perceived as a threat in itself. Because of this we start to see every experience as a threat before we even start it. Every experience has been transformed into a risk to be managed.[19]

“The tendency to engage with uncertainty through the prism of fear, and therefore to anticipate the worst possible outcome, can be understood as a crisis of causality.”

Some time ago I visited an art exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam that displayed the work of Gerrit Rietveld Students to view the work of a friend. The title of the exhibition Always at Risk, Yet Never in Danger [20] stuck with me. The title suggests that the work students make in an art school is often experimental and daring, but that they are never really in danger because they make it in an protected school environment. The danger in this case would be critics and judgment, but is that really danger? According to the dictionary danger is “exposure or liability to injury, pain, harm, or loss”.[21] I think the title could be used for western society in general. We live in a society in which we fear everything, yet we rarely experience real direct dangers like hunger or violence. Historically speaking we have a very advanced social security system (in the western world) so we can get affordable health care, housing etc. Still this is not helping us feel in control because this means we have to be reliant of others.

A thing that my grandfather desires is control and the garden gives him exactly that. I think me and my grandfather dealt with this problem in a similar fashion. Although the forest of Sweden and a community garden in Heiloo (small town in North Holland) are two completely different outdoor experiences I can see a correlation between the two. That being control.

Some people may see the trip I made as a step outside my comfort zone and partially that is true, being outside means you are exposed to the elements and that brings along certain risks and challenges. When I prepared for my trip I tried to mentally and physically prepare myself for all the possible danger scenarios that might occur. What if I get robbed? What if my bike breaks in the middle of nowhere? What if a predator stalking me while I’m in my tent? All these little and big anxieties were almost instantly gone as soon I was on the road. The at first seemingly hazardous trip became just a bicycle ride.

Instead I felt in control. For both me and my grandfather being outside created our own space in which we could make our own decisions. Decisions that have direct impact. Instead of having a whole lot of small fears (of which the outcome I couldn’t control anyway) I only had to concern myself with my primary needs: food, shelter and what place to go next. I was no longer exposed to television, news programs, internet etc. Which took away a lot of stress.

As I explained in the chapter before, overcoming these moments of discomfort gives an huge feeling of accomplishment and the confidence to be able to take care of yourself in troubled times. The confidence that you can handle anything no matter what happens. The problem is that our anxieties are often keep from engaging in the these experiences in the first place. It is an interesting paradox, because in order to feel better you have to expose yourself to the stressful situation first. And with the growing use of technology I’m afraid that these experiences might get lost.

A place for reflection

On an average day during my trip I spend most of the time cycling, the little time I wasn’t on the road I spend in or around my tent. A lot of the time doing nothing, just relaxing, listening to the birds and taking in my surroundings. I realised that doing “nothing” is something I hadn’t experienced for a long time. I remember that as a child I had moments in which I had nothing to do on a daily basis. Then when i complained to my mother about my inability to come up with a fun activity she used to tell me that being bored was important because that’s when you get all your best ideas.

Boredom is generally speaking considered as something negative. Boredom is experienced by almost everyone at some point in their lives, and as long as it is not reacurrening thing it is not really dangerous. However, chronic boredom is associated with a range of psychological, social, and physical health difficulties. For example, boredom is correlated with mental health symptoms, such as depression and anxiety.[22] Yet it is also an experience that evokes the search for doing something more meaningful.

“Through the synthesis of psychodynamic, existential, arousal, and cognitive theories of boredom, we argue that boredom is universally conceptualized as “the aversive experience of wanting, but being unable, to engage in satisfying activity.” [23]

Studies has shown that people that are bored long for new and purposeful activities, and because of that they tend to engage in activities that they perceive to be really meaningful in life.[24] Boredom is an essential part for creativity. Creativity is not sparked by solving a specific problem. It is more likely to arise when a person is bored with the way something has been done a thousand times before and wants to try something new.

"Being bored turns your mind inward and encourages reflection. When you're rushing about, there's no time to think. When you're bored, there's nothing else to do but think,"

Today I am never bored. When I have nothing specific to do I am behind my laptop. Watching videos on youtube or playing some meaningless game on my phone. I sometimes have the feeling that Idleness is not really an option in the modern world. Why would you do nothing if you can see that new show on Netflix at any place? We live in a world where every free moment has to be filled. Our mobile electronic devices are always close by to make sure of that. The constant beeping, vibrating and flashing of notifications of our devices interrupt us from what we are doing. The fear of missing out on a social opportunity or just something cool and that you might like to see or might like to be part of (Like the survival videos that were discussed before) keeps us close to them.[25]

Technology is in many cases the source of our anxieties. But It’s convenience, it’s entertaining possibilities makes it hard for us to see that it also brings bad aspects. On my trip I had no laptop with me. I had no distractions anymore and all of the sudden I had time and space to think. Only when I didn't have my laptop with me anymore I realised how much time I spend on on my electrical devices, and how good it actually felt not using it for a while. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote:

“In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,–no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,–my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,–all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball. I am nothing. I see all.” [26]

To many the ultimate freedom is be able to do whatever they want whenever they want. According to the philosophy of Libertarianism people can’t be forced to serve the society and are free to do with their lives whatever they want, even though their choices might harm themselves. [27] Immanuel Kant’s notion of freedom is more complicated. He believed that every free and independent person has a responsibility towards himself and society. And that every decision to act should be made with reason. [28] If you do whatever you want you are opposite of free, you are a slave to your own lust and desires. You can only be free once you are able to reason your decisions. Christopher Knight, aka the North Pond Hermit was a man who lived in the woods without having a conversation with anyone for 27 years. The only time he exchanged words with someone was when he accidentally ran into an hiker. Knight claimed that they only words they exchanged was “hi”. His motivations for his isolation is a mystery since he is very reluctant to speak with the media. He however said that he experienced his solitude as being completely free.[29]

“My desires dropped away. I didn’t long for anything. I didn’t even have a name. To put it romantically, I was completely free.”

There were many things I stopped thinking about when on my trip. For example I no longer I cared about how I dressed or looked. the people who must have taught weird things about me when they saw me strolling through the supermarket lanes. A bewildered dirty guy dressed in multiple layers of clothing combined with tight cycling shorts (those with the padding on the butt that make you look like a baboon). The only thing that matters when you spend most of your time outside is practicality. Which leaves a space to think about other more meaningful things.

Conclusion

It is proven that nature has health benefits. This should be reason enough for anyone to spend some time outside. This doesn't have to mean that you have to camp out in the wild like I did for five weeks. It can be just a walk in the park or spending time in your garden for an hour like my grandfather does in his vegetable garden.

In my study I spend enormous amounts of time behind a computer judging the problems of others, while I barely have experienced anything myself yet. There is very little time and space to think about why we do things and where we are going while we are constantly being pushed to do more. The outdoors offers a real experience, in contrast to the life behind a computer. We spend so much time on the web watching others have experiences that we forget to have our own. These fake experiences can be fun and relaxing but they are not complete, they merely offer a snippet of the real deal. The bad experiences are often the nicest ones because you learn from them and overcoming them gives a huge feeling of accomplishment and confidence. Plus, It is important to challenge ourselves to get in the flow of life. Sometimes to engage in a real experience is more important and valuable than the outcome.

Unfortunately we live in a modern society where we are exposed to countless anxieties, if you give in to these anxieties they give us a constantly feeling of being at risk while we are never in critical danger. This makes every possible experience a threat to be managed and keeps us from having our real experiences.

Many of these fears and anxieties are being fed and enlarged by our extensive and growing use of technology. Technology makes us blind. It’s convenience makes it hard for us to see that it also brings bad aspects. In the outdoors there is minimal exposure to technology, and my trip therefore made me see again. Only when I didn't have it around anymore I realised how much time I spend on my electrical devices, and how good it actually felt not using it for a while. I am not like the Unabomber. I don’t think technology only brings bad, but I do feel that it is healthy to have a break and realize its impact on our lives.

An important note to make is that being exposed to nature has also downsides. I think the life story of the Unabomber is an perfect example of this. To me it seems typical that the Unabomber sends his bombs through the mail. He lives an isolated life and minimal contact with the outside world. Perhaps this resulted in the the lack of affection that made him send the self made bombs. On one hand it is a place where you can come to new ideas but on the other hand there is no one to correct you. This can ultimately result in alienation from society. Of course Kaczynski was a extreme individual, I’m not saying that anyone who isolates themselves in nature is going to turn into a terrorist but I definitely think that staying by yourself in the wild can take its toll on your mental wellbeing.

A big inspiration to me to make my trip was the movie Into the Wild[30]. In the movie, that is based on a true story, a young man named Chris McCandless donates his $24,000 in savings to charity and left his hometown to start his two year long journey through the United States to eventually end up In the wilderness of Alaska. He was fed up with his capitalistic lifestyle and decided to leave all his belongs behind. His remarkable life story was made into a film directed by Sean Pean in 2007. Unfortunately McCandless adventure didn’t end well. He died after eating a poisonous berry, not being able to reach friends or family or anyone else for help.

Both Kaczynski and Mccandless choose to live in isolation in order to escape from modern society. Mccandless to hide from capitalism and Kaczynski from technology. Much like monks they denounced certain commodities and virtues in life in order to live in closer to their ideological beliefs. Their endeavours to withdraw and survive in nature didn’t end well. Kaczynski was caught for his actions and was sentenced to life in imprisonment, and Mccandless died.

It is almost impossible to stay in nature for a longer period of time without giving up some of our basic needs, like for example social contacts, and on top of that it can be physically extremely demanding. The same goes for myself. Although I felt a significant amount of freedom during my trip I was physically exhausted and quite happy to back home again. I was living on a budget, I had no income with meant I eventually had to return to my normal life no matter what. In that sense it was an temporal escape rather than an solution. Fortunately you don’t have to stay in the woods for five weeks like I did to feel the positive benefits of a real experience. A small outdoor experiences can already have a big impact and make us feel better. Like the visits my grandfathers makes to his garden or my sister who goes on a casual camping trip every now and then.

“The relationship of survivalism to the future is double edged: whereas survivalism finds it justification in fear of disaster, it is often covertly motivated by a desire to escape the ambiguities specific to life in the present.”[31]

With this essay I don’t want to create the illusion that my experience took away everything I struggle with. But what it did offer me is a new perspective. My trip made me realize that I perhaps should not take my practice to serious at times. Instead of trying to solve big problems in society that are not related to me in any way, I think it is sometimes better to make little gestures that are genuine than big ones that are not meant. I firmly believe that a work of art or design is more successful when you can see the love and affection that is put into it.

An artist like Richard Long is a great example of this.[32] He makes art that involves walking and the rearranging of rocks. His break through and one of his most well known works, line made by walking, is a picture of path that he created by walking up and down a grass field. He is often linked with the Land Art movement in which artists make radical changes in the landscape by for example digging holes or rearranging rocks and boulders. The comparison seems logical when looking at Longs work, although according to himself there is a significant difference. Long has no interest in making big and monumental gestures in his work. On the contrary, Some of his actual work might never been seen by anyone. Because it is made in a place that is very isolated from civilization. Or it is simply not recognized as his work because they are made by elements of nature. Often the only outcome that is left of his actual work is a picture or a hand drawn map of the trip he made.

Looking back, the process of writing this thesis was quite a struggle for me. I’m not an experienced writer at all, which is why I was very anxious to start. Although this essay might not be a masterpiece of any kind I do feel a little more confident with writing in the aftermath. Confidence that I can benefit form in the coming years. In a sense writing this thesis was a real experience in itself. Something that seems dangerous or scary at first but ends up to be a moment of self personal growth, learning and joy.

But during the process I failed to engage in some real experiences as well. When I started writing this thesis the number one tip that my tutor gave me was to go outside and not only to go and find your sources online and in books. Because in general the internet doesn’t give you the whole story. Websites can be biased and give you only the information that the maker of the website or page wants you to have. A person who is exposed to nature on a daily basis, like for example a park ranger, could have helped me with my research and to define my topic of interest better. Instead of getting in action right away I was hesitating to seek contact and I ended up delaying and eventually skipping the contact. It was the fear to embarrass myself towards someone with more knowledge than myself that withheld me from seeking contact. While the chance of failure might always be present it is actually more likely that the person was probably very willing to help, and had probably a lot of interesting things to say. By giving in to these fears I possibly missed an opportunity of learning. The satisfaction of overcoming the fear of the engagement should be reason enough to do it.

This reminded me that Nature is not the only place where real experiences can be found. They can be found anywhere, sometimes they can be small, like ordering something unfamiliar from a restaurant menu that you have never tried before. And it can be big like applying for the dream job you always wanted. You just have to be willing to take the risks. The coming year I will keep the the lessons that I learned during the making of this thesis in mind. I am confident that this will help to take the right decisions and risks when needed.

Endnotes

1. Alan Ewert & Yun Chang, Levels of Nature and Stress Response (17 May 2018), [09 december 2019]
2. Dirk Waterval, Kinderen krijgen slechtere ogen door het kijken naar een scherm, Trouw (13 december 2017), [09 december 2019]
3. Voedingscentrum, Vitamine D (n.b), https://www.voedingscentrum.nl/encyclopedie/vitamine-d.aspx> [09 december 2019]
4. Christina Heiser, What the beach does to your brain, NBC News, (16 July 2018), https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/what-beach-does-your-brain-ncna787231>[09 december 2019]
5. Alan Ewert & Yun Chang, Levels of Nature and Stress Response (17 May 2018), [09 december 2019]
6. Venkatesh Rao, Domestic Cozy, Ribbonfarm (March 4, 2019), [09 december 2019]
7. Venkatesh Rao, Domestic Cozy, Ribbonfarm (March 4, 2019), [09 december 2019]
8. Roy F. Baumeister and Ellen Bratslavsky, Bad is Stronger Than Good (Western Reserve University, 2001): p. 334, 341.
9. Roy F. Baumeister and Ellen Bratslavsky, Bad is Stronger Than Good (Western Reserve University, 2001): p. 325.
10. Steven Gans & Kendra Cherry, 'Flow' Can Help You Achieve Goals, Verywellmind (08 August 2019) [09 december 2019]
11. Arwa Mahdawi, Would you live in a house without a kitchen? You might have to, The Guardian, (24 June 2018), [09 december 2019]
12. Phil LeBeau, Relax, experts say it’s at least a decade before you can buy a self-driving vehicle, CNBC (30 juli 2019), https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/29/experts-say-its-at-least-a-decade-before-you-can-buy-a-self-driving-car.html> [09 december 2019]
13. Tanya Mohn, Most Americans Still Afraid To Ride In Self-Driving Cars, Forbes (Mar 28, 2019) [09 december 2019]
14. Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: Een kleine geschiedenis van de mensheid (Amsterdam, de Bezige Bij, 2012), p. 58, 59.
15. n.b., Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski), history.com, (December 9, 2019), , [09 december 2019]
16. Theodore Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future (1995), p. 15, 16.
17. Theodore Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future (1995), p. 11
18. Encyclopedia of Communication and Information, Fear and the Media (18 December 2018) [9 Januari 2020]
19. Frank Furedi, The only thing we have to fear is the ‘culture of fear’ itself (Spiked, 2007)
20. Always in risk, Yet never in Danger (2017) [Exhibition], Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam (28 September 2017 - 28 October 2017)
21. ‘danger’, in merriam webster dictionary [online], [15 januari 2020]
22. John D. Eastwood, Alexandra Frischen, Mark J. Fenske & Daniel Smilek, ‘The Unengaged Mind: Defining Boredom in Terms of Attention’ Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7 (2012), 482-495, p. 1.
23. John D. Eastwood, Alexandra Frischen, Mark J. Fenske & Daniel Smilek, ‘The Unengaged Mind: Defining Boredom in Terms of Attention’ Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7 (2012), 482-495, p. 1.
24. Amelia Hill, Boredom is good for you, study claims, The Guardian (6 may 2011), [10 december 2019]
25. dr. Gini Harrison & dr. Mathijs Lucassen, Stress and anxiety in the digital age: The dark side of technology, The Open University, (1st March 2019), , [09 december 2019]
26. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature (1836) p. 4.
27. Bas van der Vossen, Libertarianism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (28 januari 2019), [15 januari 2020]
28. Michael Rohlf, Immanuel Kant, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (25 januari 2016) [15 januari 2020]
29. Simon Worrall, Why the North Pond Hermit Hid From People for 27 Years, National Geographic (9 April 2017) [19 december 2019 ]
30. Into the Wild. Dir. Sean Pen. Paramount Vantage. 2007.
31. Anna Bak, Wilderness Survival Guide: A Guide to the Aesthetics of Survivalism (Leipzig, Spector Books, March 1, 2016) p. 5, 9.
32. Charlotte Higgins, Richard Long: 'It was the swinging 60s. To be walking lines in fields was a bit different', The Guardian (Fri 15 June 2012) [10 december 2019]