Outdoor recreation often slips into what I call an achievement-based relationship with nature. I’ve been guilty of it myself. Whether it’s “bagging peaks”, racing to finish the AT, or stamping the land with machines and monuments, the focus shifts from ecology to ego.
Being obsessed with Peak Bagging is not Solarpunk.
Nature is not your personal obstacle to challenge yourself against, it is a shared place of discovery you trample when you only see it as a place to endlessly, exhaustingly conquer.
This is a clickbait/ragebait headline, which has little to do with the article itself.
The article itself is essentially a travel blog post about this guy’s vacation and the very emotional emotions he experienced during it.
The title and post content are just weirdly judgemental nonsense. If you want to go into nature to lay under a tree and listen to crickets chirp, that’s great. Do that. But if you want to go into nature to challenge yourself, that’s also great, you can do that, too. If someone shows up at a trailhead and says “Imma run around this loop and try really hard”, then their experience will be different from listening to crickets chirp, but no less legitimate - they will feel their body moving, their lungs burning, their heart pounding. The wind on their face and their sweat on their skin. And they will finish with a visceral experience of being in that particular place, doing that particular thing, at that particular time. But importantly, they were able to have that experience because they set the goal “run around the loop”.
If someone shows up at a trailhead and says “Imma run around this loop and try really hard”, then their experience will be different from listening to crickets chirp, but no less legitimate - they will feel their body moving, their lungs burning, their heart pounding. The wind on their face and their sweat on their skin. And they will finish with a visceral experience of being in that particular place, doing that particular thing, at that particular time. But importantly, they were able to have that experience because they set the goal “run around the loop”.
Yes and you just described a totally internal experience that relies little on the details of the outside environment other than the burden and challenge it places on the body.
I am not bashing this type of pursuit I am saying it is fundamentally selfish and is a different pursuit than trying to actually connect with, observe and know nature by listening instead of pressing your body to its physical limit just to prove you can and get those sweet exercise drug chemicals going in your brain.
The person who spends time listening to crickets chirp will walk away with an externally rich memory of all the wildlife they listened to carefully, all of the rhythms of the forest and the unique creatures and events they happened to catch by being slow and quiet. The person who spent the entire time running will primarily remember the experience of running, the details of the external are just snapshots and set dressing to theme the run in their memories.
I am saying it is fundamentally selfish and is a different pursuit than trying to actually connect with, observe and know nature by listening instead of pressing your body to its physical limit just to prove you can and get those sweet exercise drug chemicals going in your brain.
That really comes off as very elitist, IMO.
Why?
By saying jogging through nature is inherently selfish compared to walking through it. I’d also say you pretty clearly look down upon those who like to exercise in nature based on your other comments here, and your framing of people doing it for ‘the drug chemicals’.
You say you’re not bashing them, but I’m not sure that defense works since you’re kind’ve framing a different way of experiencing nature as inherently inferior and ‘selfish’ compared to your preferred way, instead of framing it as two equally valid ways to experience it (as long as it doesn’t hurt the local ecology, or leave any litter).
The overall vibe I get is a sense of elitism that only your own preferred slower way of taking in nature and pondering it is the truly valid and meaningful way of experiencing it. But that’s just my 2 cents.
By saying jogging through nature is inherently selfish compared to walking through it. I’d also say you pretty clearly look down upon those who like to exercise in nature based on your other comments here, and your framing of people doing it for ‘the drug chemicals’.
I like drugs, I have no problem with taking drugs I just don’t like when people pretend they aren’t taking drugs when they are.
You say you’re not bashing them, but I’m not sure that defense works since you’re kind’ve framing a different way of experiencing nature as inherently inferior and ‘selfish’ compared to your preferred way, instead of framing it as two equally valid ways to experience it (as long as it doesn’t hurt the local ecology, or leave any litter).
Yes and you are framing this conversation in a way that if I criticize a broad cultural movement centered around the outdoors for being shallow this necessarily means I think I am superior. You allow no other perspective other than one that agrees with your own unless that perspective is relativistic about everything with no judgements possible at all.
I can criticize outdoor culture without being selfish or adopting a position of assumed superiority and even if I was those things it doesn’t actually negate the points I am making since I am arguing the overall selfishness of outdoor culture is even greater? We are all a part of this problem as we are all part of the same society.
I just don’t like when people pretend they aren’t taking drugs when they are.
There are many people who do not appear to experience ‘runners high’. I am one of those people, I have never experienced any noticeable pleasant side-effects from exercise itself, just a rather unpleasant burning sensation in my lungs. Regardless, I still ride my bike or jog to maintain my health, and I vastly prefer doing so amongst nature if I can.
you are framing this conversation in a way that if I criticize a broad cultural movement centered around the outdoors for being shallow this necessarily means I think I am superior.
Claiming the way an entire subset of other people experience nature is inferior and shallow compared to yours is kinda the definition of a sense of superiority, yeah.
I have no problem criticizing people who litter in nature, or destroy it in some way, but putting every jogger into the same box, with disregard to the variability of those people’s respect and appreciation of nature just due to the way they personally enjoy it? Oof.
Claiming the way an entire subset of other people experience nature is inferior and shallow compared to yours is kinda the definition of a sense of superiority, yeah
I am arguing our cultural framing around outdoor culture is inferior and shallow compared to a deeper more thoughtful relationship with the natural world and and an awareness of the living history of colonialism as it bends and warps our perspective our relationship with nature.
If you do not allow me this without labelling me as attempting to claim I am superior than you simply do not allow any kind of criticism of your beliefs/actions in this area. How else am I supposed to interpet this?
I am not bashing this type of pursuit I am saying it is fundamentally selfish and is a different pursuit than trying to actually connect with, observe and know nature by listening instead of pressing your body to its physical limit just to prove you can and get those sweet exercise drug chemicals going in your brain.
Look at you proving your own point. So you’re saying that your way of hiking is inherently better and more meaningful? Yeah that certainly sounds like an out of control ego.
Not everyone enjoys things the same way you do. Not everyone finds meaning the same way you do. As long as they aren’t preventing others from enjoying the trail whichever way they use the trail is valid.
You seem to have strong opinions on how other people enjoy things. You also seems to want to dictate the proper way to enjoy what you enjoy. You also seems to think you can predict what memories will form in someone else’s mind. Check your own ego. I think the call might be coming from inside the house.
You seem to have strong opinions on how other people enjoy things. You also seems to want to dictate the proper way to enjoy what you enjoy. You also seems to think you can predict what memories will form in someone else’s mind. Check your own ego. I think the call might be coming from inside the house.
Yes I have strong opinions about people enjoy nature, that does not mean I want to dictate the way to enjoy what I enjoy it means I am criticizing the motivations at the heart of some other people who enjoy a thing I enjoy.
I have checked my own ego, I have not claimed I am better than other people for enjoying nature the way I do, rather I am pointing out that the embedded assumptions in popular outdoor culture are problematic and we need to examine them. How is that being egotistical?
Criticizing someone’s motivations for enjoying a thing you enjoy is inherently placing yourself above the people you are criticizing. That is the essence of egotism.
You called people selfish for using hiking trails for exercise and personal lmorovement. That is saying that your motivations are better than theirs because selfishness is generally recognized as a negative trait and you are saying that their motivations are selfish while yours are somehow not
You enjoy a quiet hike through nature, taking note of the beauty of the natural world around you. Others might enjoy a run through challenging terrain and pushing their body past their previously believed limits. Still others might enjoy a noisy walk through the woods with their family as they trek to the perfect cook out spot to enjoy their time together. None of these is any better than the others. No one needs to be calling anyone else selfish for having these motivations.
If you had some other point you need to do a better job of communicating it.
The person who spends time listening to crickets chirp will walk away with an externally rich memory of all the wildlife they listened to carefully
I’m planning to climb an El Cap route in about a week. I expect that my goal oriented pursuit will leave me with some equally rich memories of the sun beating on my back as starlings swoop past me. I will see hawks gliding on the thermals at eye level. The breeze across the face will be a welcome relief, and I will become intimately familiar with the bumps, edges, cracks, and seams in the rock as I search for placements for my hooks and pitons - my attention heightened by the potential to take a 100’ fall if I make a poor descision. And with my day’s labor done, I will lay in my portaledge dangling several hundred feet off the ground and look at the stars, marvelling at the beauty of nature around me and the joy of being in such an incredible position.
I am currently thinking about going out into the park near where I live and experiencing a beautiful sunny day as songbirds fly by me.
as starlings swoop past me
An invasive species introduced by someone with a vision about what nature should be not what it was.
I am currently thinking about going out into the park near where I live and experiencing a beautiful sunny day as songbirds fly by me.
That sounds very nice. I hope you enjoy that.
An invasive species introduced by someone with a vision about what nature should be not what it was.
I just think they’re neat
An invasive species introduced by someone with a vision about what nature should be not what it was.I just think they’re neat
So… you like the aesthetic of them and you aren’t interested in examining it any deeper?
Exactly. I am witnessing nature rather than egotistically analyzing it, making myself feel big and smart by categorizing living creatures into categories like “invasive”. I have moved beyond the need to do such things (it’s very impressive - are you impressed?), and now am able to appreciate the true beauty of nature and the connectedness of the world - unlike those big dumb dummies who keep insisting that “doing things” like “thinking” is a valid way to live
No I am not impressed you don’t examine the world around you with a curious and analytical mind.
