The Need for Nature & Nothing
In the fall of 2019, I embarked on a backpacking trip with some of my closest friends from high school through Great Basin National Park (the most underrated National Park by a long shot, btw). The trip was initially conceived as a belated bachelor party for me. While that might have been the genesis of that trip, we really just wanted an excuse to get together after being apart for several years. The trip provided all of us the opportunity to connect and bond with one another in ways that hadn’t happened in nearly a decade. We talked about everything from our careers, to our passions, to existential challenges, to our families, and much more. While it initially started as just a bachelor party, the connections and conversations that were made, surrounded by nature, were so rewarding to us that we decided to do another backpacking trip in 2020 in the Ansel Adams Wilderness.
Well a year later COVID hit, along with a summer full of devastating wildfires. Sadly (and understandably) COVID prevented those living out of state from going on the trip. For those of us who were still able to go, the Wildfires forced us to abandon our sights set on Ansel Adams Wilderness and head as far away from the wildfires as possible. So we pulled an Elsa and went into the unknown… We traveled to Jarbidge Wilderness.
Jarbidge and Great Basin, while relatively different in topography, have one major thing in common with one another. They’re both in the middle of fucking nowhere. For those unfamiliar, Jarbidge is about an hour and a half north of Elko, NV. Most of that drive north takes place on a dirt road, a bumpy dirt road at that. Great Basin’s nearest “major” town is Ely, NV. Neither of these places have anything incredibly noteworthy about them, especially when compared to places like Yosemite and Yellowstone. The one thing they really have going for them though is this – Zero Cell Service. And when I say zero, I mean Z. E. R. O. Great Basin has a bit at the base, but once you get hiking there is nooooothing. Cell service in Jarbidge pretty much evaporates once you hit the dirt road… and that’s a good thing.
Quick, related tangent. My wife and I met in the summer of 2016. One of the things we immediately bonded over was our mutual love for hiking and the outdoors. We loved the outdoors so much we got married in Tahoe. As the years have gone on, nature has not only become a mutual love of ours, but a mutual necessity. We don’t listen to music on our hikes and we stay off our phones. Our hikes are spent just talking with one another or sometimes not talking at all and just taking in our surroundings. We find that after nearly every single hike we get a little bit closer in some capacity. In some ways, this means discussing part of our relationship. In other ways it means discussing our professional lives. We even come up with creative (film, writing, photography) ideas after some hikes. 9.9 times out of 10 we come back from these experiences more connected and more in sync with one another.
As I’ve gotten older one of the things I’ve struggled with is my fear of losing my imagination. As a child, a teenager, and even in my early 20’s I found that I had an abundance of creative ideas. As I’ve gotten older that flame has started to dim a little. I don’t think this is because I’ve gotten older, rather I think it’s because I’ve gotten busier. I’m not blaming this on “work” specifically. I’m blaming this on the distractions that come with growing up and being in the 21st century. I don’t know about you, but I have distractions everywhere I go. How many of you take your phones into the bathroom with you? I don’t care if you’re checking work email or scrolling Reddit, it’s a distraction. How many of you look at your phones just before you go to sleep and right when you wake up? I do that. I brag about not having a TV in my bedroom, like I’m so noble, but I beam light from my phone into my eyeballs all day. We have an endless catalog of content to watch as well. There’s always a new show that you’re behind on, a new audio book to read, a new podcast to listen to, a new TikTok or Reel to watch. The fire-hose of content is non-stop these days. So when does your brain get a chance to just chill and recalibrate? For me, that time happens when I’m out in nature.
I’m not advocating that we stay away entirely from the distractions of our life. I’m instead advocating that we find times to take a break from our distractions and unplug a little. While phrase “unplug” has become a little cliche it doesn’t make it any less true. The times when ideas have started to flow freely through my brain again have typically happened when I’m doing nothing. So whether you’ve made it this far in my ramblings or just skipped to the bottom, here is my TL,DR: Find more opportunities to get outside and experience your surroundings without the distractions of our modern age. Don’t bring music with you. Leave your podcast unplayed. Just be. Your imagination will thank you.