You know how the song goes … “Everyone needs a little time away …”. It doesn’t have to be a relationship, it could be anything that is bothering you, building up. So, you gotta get away, however you can. It’s how you look after yourself and keep the devils at bay. Everyone needs a little time away.
So, I took some time away, today.
I took the dog into the mountains, beautiful finca/farm with miles and miles of killer trails, heart-thumping climbs in a cloud forest of silence. Huge trees, green all around. A return to nature. A stepping back to jump further ahead. A regeneration through nature.
Studies find that nature, being in nature, even just hugging a tree can heal one’s soul. Research even finds that you needn’t be outside - just playing the sounds of nature or viewing nature, does the trick. And when contrasted with the same “outside” effect of an urban environment, the health benefits of nature, wild nature wins hands down.
I once had a profile as an athlete and was designing a campaign with Lululemon in Canada. I called it “Get Out Of The House”. It was to encourage kids to crawl out of their rooms and basement and get outside. I’d commissioned some rap artists to do the main promo and song. However, Charlie went with Silken Laumman’s “Play” proposal. But I still remember my heady, excited days of thinking up ways to get kids out of the house.
We all need to get out of the house - in particular, get out into nature. Suckerberg can suck my big petunia with his Metaverse. It’s the worst place we can go.
I spent 3 or so hours on the trails and it did my soul a world of good. And if you are a reflective type, it is also a great way to just think through things. During my decades as a long-distance, ultra-runner type - people often asked me, “How can you do it? Stay out there for hours and hours, just doing repetitive, foot after foot?”. For me, the fundamental aspect of running was that I was afloat with my mind, pure mind, pure nature, Nietzsche would say. It was essential to my own soul. I need more of that than ever these days.
So I’m home, making potato soup and drinking a glass of red wine. Feet up, dog is quiet as hell, kaput. I’m much better able to deal with the chaos around me. My life, shedding skin these days, feeling like Siddhartha, first time out of the palace and seeing, truly seeing the world as it is. Poverty, sickness, aging and the necessity of compassion for all this. Able to deal with this man, his death (Facebook has already taken down his own video appeal before his suicide and his letter is suppressed from publication). A present-day Stefan Lux, a present day Jan Palacha, who warned the world like this man, of coming peril, the silent dictatorship.
However, I’ll follow Voltaire’s advice and “cultivez mon jardin” - the world is not for 'the best in the best of all possible worlds. So like any storm, ride it out. Take solace in the small things. Be candid with yourself and others, like Voltaire. Enjoy the gifts, like nature, like being outside and enjoying breath after breath. Like being able to see oneself a part of nature and not apart from it or even an appendage of it.