You want to get away for the weekend. To take the family and dogs, hook up the camper and head out to the lake, or trail, or forest. You want to leave your life and its problems behind. So you pack up your supplies and head out, happy for the adventure and the chance for some peace and quiet.
You Don’t find it.
Reality Check
Unless you’re 9000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains at an unmarked campsite in the middle of November while a cold front is chilling the region, there will be a dozen other schmucks just like you camped in rows up and down a narrow black asphalt lane.
You would have had more room if you had just stayed home. In fact, the only difference between this street and your neighborhood street is…huh, not much.
So should one not go camping?
Of course, you should!
Get outside and as much into nature as possible. How much is up to you.
Being in nature is good for you, good for the soul. There will be some reminders of real-life along the way, but in the end, after you have finished camping and you’re driving home, it almost always feels worth it.
You almost always want to do it again.
Going camping these days (even in a camper trailer or RV) allows you to slow down and focus on what’s needed for your survival during the trip.
Mundane tasks such as gathering, cutting, and stacking firewood are cathartic, and being out in the wild has an overall therapeutic effect.
A Genetic Effect?
Sometimes I wonder if immersing oneself in nature doesn’t trigger some ancient genetic memory known to the body and only sensed by the brain.
For example, have you ever stopped to examine how you feel when you start a fire?
Have you ever looked around a campfire and observed the faces of everyone staring into it?
How often are they in a trance, fixated by some ancient contentedness that they’ll be warm and safe and that they can cook their food.
Are you the type of person that when you go for a hike in the woods, you turn into a master hunter tracker?
This actually happens often to me. My normal 9-to-5 life quickly disappears, and my reality shrinks to the forest I’m trekking through. I feel aware of my surroundings and listen to every bird whistle, leaf rustle, and angry squirrel who trumpets my intrusion into their domain.
As I stalk, I hear the sounds of the wind stirring the trees and ringing the leaves like little soft green bells. It’s mesmerizing.
So
So go camping, or hiking, or get out into nature any way you can or want. But, be warned. It is continually more difficult to not share that experience with others.
There certainly are a lot of us!
