Wildthings
By Skedaddle
By Skedaddle
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, that we are the wildlife, not separate from it.
The question is how do we connect to our natural state in a modern society that wants to sanitise wild places and manicure wilderness?
To understand what it means to be a runner I feel we must first make a connection with the places we run. It doesn’t matter where you run, what’s more important is awareness of surroundings.
Watches, wicking and workouts have our upmost focus, whilst the nature that surrounds us often shimmers in some sort of distant haze.
I know this all sounds a bit ‘new age’ but in essence it’s very old. We are not so distant from our ancestors.
Why are people so afraid of barefoot? I don’t think they are, I think that they are afraid of our primal nature.
To many people a golf course is the wilderness, sanitised, sterile, safe. Anything else more remote or challenging is labeled as dangerous. This is how the nanny state is dulling our senses into a lukewarm, bland soup of disconnection.
How do we get back into the conversation, take part in the chatter of the natural world when everything that surrounds us is pulling in the opposite direction. Our senses being muffled with asphalt, concrete and foam?
I would say don’t be afraid to be wild, to explore and have adventures. A bird call, a buzzing insect, a sunrise, a gnarly tree, a smell whatever your senses respond to, this is the vocabulary of life. Our ancestors spoke this language, they needed it to survive so where does that leave us?
Is there a place for all this in our moderns societies? I think there is.
Even in the concrete jungle there are seasons, rhythms, patterns, tribal markings, smells and colour. Just don't forget to look up from your watch every now and then. Unplug yourself from collective white hum of performance gains and losses. Observe with fresh eyes your surrounding as you pass through a landscape.
Stay wild.