Quiet Time

It is odd to be alone. I am not talking about being by yourself in your one-bedroom apartment where you hear the sounds of cars, the bustle of the city, and the garbage man wheeling your trash cans out front. I am talking about a desolate campground in the middle of nowhere where the nearest town is miles away, where your only human interaction is the park ranger coming to clean the outhouse once every two days. When the noise dies down, your phone runs out of service, and the traffic lights turn from red, yellow, and green to a flashing red light; the life you are used to is far from your grasp.

It is easy to note the obvious contrasts when you are alone. A slight feeling of emptiness, a longing for something, anything really, a bird, a car, or a plane, and an overall feeling of simplicity. Where all you need is what you have with you, it becomes obvious that all the things we accessorize our life with are superfluous. The only thing that really matters is human connection. Everything we convince ourselves is sooooo important, is sooooo unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Very little of what we stress over matters. It is almost all a waste of mental energy. The truth is that if you have people who love you, everything else is gravy. The new gadget, gizmo, car, or t-shirt will never fill the void in your soul.

So, what am I rambling on about?

Go out in the woods for 2 nights, bring nothing but a bag of clothes, simple food, a shit ton of firewood, and a dog. Spend time alone contemplating your life, your reason for existence, and what you hope to do during your short duration here on Earth. Dare to be bored. Chop firewood for no other reason than you have nothing else to do. Realize that these two short days feel like an eternity, yet our normal days fly by in the blink of an eye. Why is this? Do we fill our normal days with delusional sweet nothings in an attempt to drown out the crushing reality that we spend most of our lives on something that does not matter? Are we trying to convince ourselves that the artificial intricacies of our lives are somehow important? We design this life that is like playing 52 card pickup over and over and over again with the goal of distracting ourselves from the fact that our reality is fleeting. Each day that passes is one less day we will spend on this Earth.

Embrace your own version of Thoreau’s “Walden” and spend some time in the woods.

Picture: Westport-Union Landing State Beach