The relationship of oneself to nature

Bruce Lee once talked about the shape of water, saying “you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle […] be water my friend”. Although his emphasis was on something different, it still fits to my case here, because it fits perfectly into the situation everyone finds him- or herself in when you (want to) experience Friluftsliv. You as a person should not impose over nature but rather integrate yourself into the circumstances you find yourself in while enjoying Friluftsliv. Why? Because nature is the reason you are there in the first place.

Enjoying the beauty of nature.

Why is that so important? – Learning to care

There has always been a discourse about nature, and so far, it was mostly seen as “op-posed to culture” (Soper 1995). This is why nowadays our relationship to nature is more than problematic and luckily the focus shifts more and more.

The reason why I want to talk about that topic is that during our last excursion in the forest (where we lived out there, making a camp, sleeping under the tarp, no technology and so on) I noticed that I was constantly thinking about how the things I were doing at the moment could affect nature in a bad (or maybe good) way. I was surprised that I thought so much about it and I asked myself why. I think the answer to that lays in the fact that our seminar was experiencing Friluftsliv through the last months; the meaning behind it and the values and actions it conveys. I think that I probably wouldn’t have thought so much about it before the semester. As Faarlund says: “One does not learn ecophilosophy from books alone” (Reed & Rothenberg 1993). And it goes further, because most of the people do not care that much.

The peace of an early morning in nature.

 This is why the relationship of each and every one is problematic towards nature. The reason for that, is that most of us “look at nature existing only for the benefit of humans” (Marting 1996). Even if we think we care, there are probably a lot of things we do in our regular life that threaten or destroy nature itself. I don’t want to talk about everyday life now but our experience of Friluftsliv when we are out there in the forest.

While we were out there I was asking myself if the things we do are “people-centered” or “nature-centered”. I came to the answer that they could (or should) be both but only when you think about nature too. A good example which triggered that process in my mind was the value of “leave no trace” when you leave. What bothered me there was the human-centered approach there, because the given reason to do that was, most of the time, that people who come there won’t be able to see that somebody was there … This should not be the focus! The focus should be that nature and its animals are able to take over that spot where we were with as less effort as possible. A deer doesn’t care if there are three stones laying in a row but a deer cares about green grass or the trees to live there. Sure, it should also be a priority to leave nature as it was before, so people do not see that you were there; but this should only be the second priority. And I think this thinking comes with identifying yourself with and being out there in nature – to “look more critically at the culture we have created” (Marting 1996). That is what I think is most important in Friluftsliv – we are only able to enjoy it with and through nature, so care for it.

 

Enjoy nature, but don't destroy it while doing.

References:

Marting, P. (1996). New perspectives of self, nature and others. Australian Journal of Outdoor Education. 1:3, 3-9. Reed, P. & Rothenberg, D. (1993). The Norwegian Roots of Deep Ecology - Wisdom in the Open Air. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Soper, K. (1995). What is Nature: Culture, Politics and Non-Human. Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.