Nature and Our Authentic Selves

We’re gearing up to read Into The Wild for my cyber exchange class, so in preparation we’ve been reading essays about “nature” and “wilderness” and discussing the concepts exhaustively as a class. Something has come up a lot in these discussions and essays that really bothers me, and I’d like to take a moment to address it. It deals mainly with this quote by Henry David Thoreau: “In wilderness is the preservation of the world.”

Basically, I want to confront the idea that only in the wilderness can you be your “authentic self” and find true spiritual and personal transcendence. I want to counter the theory that to truly discover something about yourself or the world you must go off on your own into the depths of nature with only your wits and a canteen. Because you know what happens to me when I go out into all the solace and wide-open-spaces of nature?

I sneeze.

Then a truckload of mucus builds up in my nostrils and so I dig out one of the five portable tissue packets to blow my nose. Then I absently rub at my itching eyes and blow my nose again, and again, and again. I might even start coughing, if it’s June and I’ve been outside for a considerable amount of time. It is nearly impossible for me to go outside in the summer or spring and not have a massive allergic reaction.

I hate nature. Having grown up surrounded by corn fields and mountains, I can confidently say this with no hesitation. I hate the sun, I hate bugs, I hate sunscreen and bug spray, I hate grass and weeds, I hate the allergies that occur around grass and weeds, I hate wearing shorts, I hate hiking, I hate Camelbacks, and I especially hate when I have to pretend to not hate nature around my environmentally-excited friends. Nature and I are just not meant to be; I’m an indoors girl through and through.

But you know what I hate more than nature? People who think that nature is the epitome of humanity, where our authentic selves emerge like beautiful butterflies from their urban cocoons. I think this perspective is pure BS.

A lot of people find transcendence and beauty and solace in nature, and good for them. I’m happy they are in touch with themselves, or at least know where to go to find that connection. But I can’t do that. Unless my “authentic” self is a sneezing, hacking monster who swears a lot (which, to be fair, might be a fairly accurate portrayal of me), nature isn’t where I’m going to find transcendence. And it’s incredibly arrogant for people like Thoreau to just assume that everything post-industrialism is evil and inherently inhuman.

I can feel just as at peace and just as free in some random foriegn country, deep in the heart of a city, as you do on a backpacking trip. I don’t have to hike all that far to reach spiritual transcendence because for me, that occurs in a quirky Oregon coffee shop or Powell’s City of Books. I feel most authentic surrounded by books and coffee and people discussing in depth the character arcs in Battlestar Galactica. Maybe your transcendence requires a break from humanity; mine requires simply a balance. Isolation can occur just as easily in a crowded room as in a forest alive with wildlife. So don’t assume that your spiritual quest will be the same as mine. You know what assuming does.