One of my favorite Henry David Thoreau quotes is his explanation of going to Walden Pond to live. He wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
What he learned was that what passed for advanced civilization; viz. town, government and business; was really quite psychologically, emotionally and spiritually impoverished. He found that those whom the white people called "savages" were actually more comfortable, happy and, in many ways richer than the whites who looked down on them. Those whom he observed in the community near Walden lived with tremendous debt, never found and/or took time to live, and saw nature as a contradiction to what they perceived as progress. Progress, he learned, was an excuse to destroy nature.
The reason that this quote has so much meaning to me is our similar experience. Six years ago Pamela and I went into the woods. We became volunteers at Glacier National Park in far northwestern Montana. While we both have always had a great love for nature our action wasn't as deliberate as Henry's. That is to say, we weren't expecting the epiphany that awaited us. We were ready and anxious to learn all that the wilderness had to teach us. We just didn't expect the Walden Pond type of enlightenment.
That simple act led us to a life on the road, exploring mountains, prairies and desert; to live deliberately. We now live in our twenty foot trailer which we named Nitsitapiisinni. That is "our way of life" in the Blackfeet language. The Blackfeet Nation is our Montana neighbor. One of the first things we learned was that modern society is extremely limiting, confining and isolating.
I bet you find that strange. I also bet that you've never known anything other than what we call 'sticks-n-bricks' (permenant buildings) and accept the idea that everyone has to have a "permenant address". That's just a good way to be controled, but that's another story.
My intent is to focus upon the positive aspects of the Thoreau quote, but I do need to lay the ground work by explaining how modern society is limiting, confining and isolating.
Society limits you by defining who you are, where you live, where you will work, what you will believe, what you will wear and many other controls that limit your ability to experience life and experience the phenomenal vastness of your potential. To be so limited is an artificial barrier created for the sole purpose of controlling you. If you give in you will not experience the fullness of life nor will you ever know your full potential. You will be content with a stereotypical concept of success.
When was the last time you stood on top of a mountain you have just climbed? Not driving up and walking out to a vista. You climbed the whole freakin' way. You look down and feel the rush of life. Yes, that's life you're feeling. That's what it feels like to not be controlled and limited. You realize 'I just did that!' You climbed a mountain. You made friends with a bear. Well, maybe making friends is too much but you encountered a bear and the two of you went you own way in peace. You climbed rugged trails, encountered animals you've never met, and gawked at magnificent panoramic vistas from high promotories. You walked along narrow ledges that made your head spin, forded rushing mountain streams, and climbed over magnificent bolders. You experienced life fully.
Why would you want to allow yourself to be limited? It's not because you want to be limited. It is because you've been taught to accept the limits. I spent an entire career dressing, acting, and talking like I was expected. When Pamela suggested that we go to Montana I asked 'for how long?' When she told me all summer, my reaction was 'can I be gone that long?' Of course I could but I was still living within societal limits. Like those observed by Henry David Thoreau, societal limits keep you pigeon-holed and confines you thought and behavior.
The problem with the type of confinement we experience in society is that those who control the society want you to see the confinement as security. I would suspect that's how it found its way into Orwell's book "1984". We have been brainwashed to see confinement as security.
"Oh, I have security here," says the person about their life in the same town in which they grew up, in a house with a big mortgage and a job that, if they were honest, could go away at any time. But they've been taught that. That, they were taught, is the American dream. They didn't experience it as truth. 'Oh,' the controllers of society say, 'you've got a house and a job. You have security.' Yeah. Right. If you believe that I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that I'll sell you cheap.
Now, I do not have anything against having a house in the same town for years. That's really nice if you know that's what you want. In fact, if you've actually givien it serious thought, tried or considered alternatives, and decided that's for you, I think it is absolutely wonderful. But when you do it because you've been told and expected to do it that way, then it is confinement. Everyone has to make a living, but hundreds of thousands of people have figured out that they don't have to have a house with a mortgage or pay an exhorbitant rent for an apartment and a job in a factory, store or office. Just like in the village near Waldon Pond, most people are confined.
Two new friends of ours are just starting their nomadic life. They are in their thirties. One runs a business with her phone. It doesn't matter where they are. The other is a bartender. She can walk into almost any town, anywhere and get a job. We have friends that work as camphosts. Others do things like work the sugarbeet harvest. One man sharpens knives while another sells his photography on-line. Another man installs solar systems while yet another gets jobs as a handiman. All of these people are leading a free, unconfined life, but we are looked upon as odd or worse. For over 90% of our existence humans have lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Where did we go wrong? (Actually I have a theory on that, but you need to follow my research on hunter-gatherers for that.)
Put these two - limitation and confinement - together and it equals isolation. For those of us who have experienced the alternative to modern society to be forced back into that mold would be like being put in solitary confinement.
It is rather ironic that those who live in the cities and town have a much higher rate of depression and are more isolated than those of us living in the wilderness sixty miles from the nearest town. Both Pamela and I realize that we have many more really good friends in our nomadic life than we ever did in our "work" lives. The reason that I am bold enough to say that we have a lower incident of depression is because of the number of good friends we have who suffered from depression and PTSD and have found relief by going, using Thoreau's words, "into the woods" where they found unconfined and unlimited life.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Like Henry David, Pamela and I came to live deliberately ... to live simply ... to learn what life in the wonderful world around us has to teach. We have learned that what passed for advanced civilization; viz. town, government and business; is really quite psychologically, emotionally and spiritually poor. In fact, it is quite suffocating. We found that those whom the white people called "savages" were/are actually more comfortable, happy and, in many ways richer than the whites who looked down on them. We observe people with tremendous debt being encouraged to buy more and more and more of everything they don't really need which puts them in greater debt. We see people who never found and/or took time to live, and who see nature as a contradiction to what they perceived as success and progress. They live in the dark, being told that that's all the light there is. They live in a monkey cage, being told that that is security. They work long hard hours because they were told that would make them a success, and then, if they don't become rich, which they are told is every human's dream, it was because they didn't work hard enough.
Pamela and I went into the woods to live diliberately, wanting to learn what nature had to teach us and we experienced an epiphany. We learned a great deal about nature - plants, animals, geology, ecosystems, deserts, prairies, forests and mountains. We have learned that humans are not the smartest or most important animal on earth just because we're the deadliest. We have learned that all you really need to feel extraordinarily blessed is a warm place to rest at night, enough to eat, and a mate with which to share. We learned that the richest, happiest people on earth are not necessarily the ones with the most power or money.
Thoreau was concerned about coming to life's end and discovering he had never lived. I now have no such worry. My only regret is that I did not do it sooner. I knew Thoreau's message philosophically but I had not yet allowed myself to go into the woods. Now that I know the joys of living off the grid where I can find peace and strength in nature I have no desire to go back to being a round peg driven into a square hole for someone's profit or pleasure.
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