What makes you want to be outdoors?

[dewi]

Sounds like a bit of a daft title considering where you are reading it, but its a serious question... what make you want to be outdoors?

This week has been particularly tough in our household, and I received news today which effects my family in a negative way. My first thought, and I do mean my very first thought, wasn't to think how I could tackle the problems, how I could fix the situation, but how I could get outdoors faster. I started packing for a weekend away with my mind focused on getting out outside into what I consider the wilderness. I'd add that saner heads prevailed and steps have been taken to make sure the news won't effect our kids... but my mind does keep wandering to the outdoors.

The obvious analysis to this is I want to escape, I want to run away, but I don't think that is why I want to be outdoors. To me being out and about makes me feel free, unrestricted by the modern world and allows me to think... think much more clearly that sitting in a box, a box that takes the pleasure away from making a brew, cooking a meal and even sleeping.

So that I would say is my reason for wanting to be outdoors... it makes me enjoy the simpler pleasures in the modern world and at the same time it gives me the freedom to look at things from the outside, to think clearly without being hindered by televisions, computers and this might seem odd, my bookshelf.

Be very interested to why others want to be outdoors.

 

[Goatboy]

Oh that's a seemingly small question that can have a huge and diverse answer.
I seriously want to gather my thoughts on it before answering, though my knee jerk reaction is that I want to be there as that's where I'm supposed to be.
Will get back to you on this one and hope that you have a fun weekend in the meantime and that your problems are easily surmountable mate.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[Dave]

I think nature was thr perfect antidote to being stuck inside offices all day long. Having said that, my favorite books that I read as a kid had great adventures involving around being in a forest, so maybe thats it. Even walking the dog, theres a lot to see and identify in your local woods. Its the 'real' world isnt it? One where human beings have spent most of their evolutionary history and you want to try and live those boys own adventures, you always assumed you would when you were a kid. Theres a lot to be said for solitude as well and space. And you experience a feeling in the wilderness you dont elsewhere.
Hope your bad news isnt too bad Dewi.

'He who a great good thing would know must to the silent places go, there the good lord grant that he, has ears to hear, and eyes to see....'

 

[Robson Valley]

I had a wife, many years ago. She believed that I hunted and fished just for the experiences of "going for a walk in the woods." So be it.
Many decades later, I go now to see the changes that the weather, the trees, the erosion and people have wrought over the past year.
I go to putz around, looking for the tell-tale signs of the animals that I know live in one place or another.

My scenery is arranged vertically, living in the hard rock mountains. Altitude changes the players. 700' isn't 5,000'

Tomorrow, I will take a truck-load of pruned spruce branch tips from my front yard. I will make a bunch of little (6') brush piles in the forest.
Terribly important habitat for smaller forest animals in deep snow and extreme cold.
I know where a Lynx den is. Maybe I can bang a rabbit or two to leave for them.
You ought to see this.

 

[John Fenna]

For me the outdoors is - for whatever reason - where I relax and can get my head together...
When my Mother died I had the opportunity to get up into Snowdonia for a week, mostly solo, and came back in a much better mental state:when my father died I had to stay and did not get away ... and I was a mental mess for quite some time!
On a more regular basis a weekend in the woods has a refreshing effect on me that the folks at work notice or a walk around the lanes clears my head for a more productive afternoons work .
I am guessing that "Outdoors" is free of the minor, background distractions and electrical pollution, disturbing electrical hums from appliances, visual stimuli, the sound of traffic/TV/next doors rows etc etc and is stuffed full of stuff that "New Agers" put on tape/bottle/paint to sell as relaxation aids - birdsong, the sound of wind in trees or running streams, the scents of herb and leaf, the sight of distant hill, nearby woods etc
At work I have found that the folk I work for - folk with various issues along the "learning disability/ mental illness/personality disorder" spectrum - tend to calm down dramatically if they go for a stroll in the woods away from the other work areas. Perhaps trees really do put out calming vibes!
Even the folks in the Biblical eras knew the power of hills in sorting things - "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help". -

 

[superc0ntra]

Just the surroundings make me feel calm and relaxed regardless of if it's in a forest, mountains or whatever. As soon as I get out I can literally feel my pulse going down and my mind opening up to a broader view (hard to explain). I think this is how an animal let out of a cage must feel.
Also, as opposed to sitting behind a desk all day, I feel it's good for my body to move about doing lots of different thing.
I think this is coded into us genetically because I have yet to come upon a person that feels bad being out, insecure and unaccustomed yes but that usually passes in a few hours even for the most inexperienced.

 

[SGL70]

For me it is a bit of a mixed bag - Escapism is obviously there, but it is more to it than that.

It is surprisingly fun to only have a few but important goals - keep dry, warm, fed and hydrated - whilst fishing, hiking or otherwise fooling around.

Perhaps it comes down to time really, for me. I tend to not use a watch in the Woods....things get done in it's own time and the work is an enjoyment in itself. That is seldom the case at work or even at home sometimes.....or that some sort of ambition rearing it's ugly head?...being outdoors is in a way simpler than everyday life. Harder perharps, but simpler...

In addition to time there is the environment....sounds, smells etc...oh well, that do help

//Greger

 

[Swallow]

Please excuse this way of putting it Dewi...

but for me the correct question is............... what makes you want to be indoors?

I think the basic answer is............... it's warmer (or maybe in the summer colder) but thinking has become so centred on our shelter that a whole "normality" has built up around being indoors.

That normality clouds the reality that spending all or most of one's time in shelters is actually really odd.

 

[Tiley]

Being indoors makes me want to be outdoors.

The weather, the colours, the air - there is no aspect of the outdoors that doesn't make my heart sing or prompts me not to want to be out in it. I sleep better outdoor than in and feel, well, just more alive.

 

[ged]

...Tomorrow, I will take a truck-load of pruned spruce branch tips from my front yard. I will make a bunch of little (6') brush piles in the forest.
Terribly important habitat for smaller forest animals in deep snow and extreme cold. ...

I wish there were more people like you on this planet.

 

[ged]

... clouds the reality that spending all or most of one's time in shelters is actually really odd.

That puts really well something that I've been trying to express somehow for years.

Living in concrete on tarmac just isn't natural, but most people on the planet think - to the extent that they can be said to think about it - that's it's the natural order of things.
Which I'm very much afraid has resulted in the world being a terrible mess.

 

[Swallow]

Well a building is like a space suit for an equatorial visitor....

......and like a space suit it only simulates the minimum possible requirements of the orginal environment. Not the whole original enviornment.

 

[Robson Valley]

There's more to the habitat brush piles that I spoke of in Post#4:
I know which Forest Service Roads will be snow-plowed in winter and which ones won't be.
I wait for 3 things: several good snowfalls of 12" or better. Spell of very cold weather (-20C).
Last, a warming weather trend and it's time to go for a look:

If the brush piles are occupied, the warm exhaled breath of the resident will make a sort of chimney, up through the snow.
That in turn becomes lined with exquisite "ice feathers" which is well worth a photo, any day.
I never disturb them, just bend over for a look.

 

[cbrdave]

After working indoors all week and as I am getting older I find being around people and noise gets to me more, I need to be somewhere outdoors an hear only nature,
Great stress reliever.

 

[Gaudette]

I'm reading a book at the moment called The men of the last frontier by Grey Owl. The book was first published in 1931 and as far as I can tell it was published to coincide with his second tour of England.
In the preface there is a paragraph which sums up for me why I like to be outdoors.

" You think my life so dissimilar to yours, and indeed, in many ways it strikes a vivid contrast. Yet some of my most cherished memories of England are of the solemn, cloistered naves in vast, venerable cathedrals, along whose shadowy aisle silence broods uninterruptedly, as in an age-old forest among whose high transepts the slightest footfall echoes hollowly in seemingly endless, ever lessening reverberations: where mean thoughts and weak desires are chocked at their inception.
Each forest and cathedral lies immersed in an almighty Hush, sublime in the unutterable tranquility of unnumbered years of of waiting- move less, soundless and unfathomable. In both a man may ponder silently, and dwell upon the past and come to better understand the purpose wherefore he was made to live. And he may emerge a better man than when he entered there.
Grey Owl.

 

[Ferret75]

I'm reading a book at the moment called The men of the last frontier by Grey Owl. The book was first published in 1931 and as far as I can tell it was published to coincide with his second tour of England.
In the preface there is a paragraph which sums up for me why I like to be outdoors.

" You think my life so dissimilar to yours, and indeed, in many ways it strikes a vivid contrast. Yet some of my most cherished memories of England are of the solemn, cloistered naves in vast, venerable cathedrals, along whose shadowy aisle silence broods uninterruptedly, as in an age-old forest among whose high transepts the slightest footfall echoes hollowly in seemingly endless, ever lessening reverberations: where mean thoughts and weak desires are chocked at their inception.
Each forest and cathedral lies immersed in an almighty Hush, sublime in the unutterable tranquility of unnumbered years of of waiting- move less, soundless and unfathomable. In both a man may ponder silently, and dwell upon the past and come to better understand the purpose wherefore he was made to live. And he may emerge a better man than when he entered there.
Grey Owl.

Very poignant and superbly written. That will be a book well worth reading.

I have always had Wordsworths 'The Tables Turned' in mind, having seen and memorised this from early childhood; One particular verse captures exactly how being in woodland has always made me feel, not just in spring, but at any time:

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man
Of moral evil and of good
Than all the sages can.

I love the tranquility with the time for quiet reflection. Being surrounded by what feel to be the most fundamental and basic things, but which are so complex and interrelated.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Arya]

I feel purified, rebooted. It is the only place were life makes sense

 

[Arya]

" You think my life so dissimilar to yours, and indeed, in many ways it strikes a vivid contrast. Yet some of my most cherished memories of England are of the solemn, cloistered naves in vast, venerable cathedrals, along whose shadowy aisle silence broods uninterruptedly, as in an age-old forest among whose high transepts the slightest footfall echoes hollowly in seemingly endless, ever lessening reverberations: where mean thoughts and weak desires are chocked at their inception.
Each forest and cathedral lies immersed in an almighty Hush, sublime in the unutterable tranquility of unnumbered years of of waiting- move less, soundless and unfathomable. In both a man may ponder silently, and dwell upon the past and come to better understand the purpose wherefore he was made to live. And he may emerge a better man than when he entered there.
Grey Owl.

That is absolutely beautiful!

 

[Graywolf]

I just feel more at home when in the outdoors , I feel more comfortable in wild places .

 

[Stevie777]

The outdoors is where we are designed to be....indoors is unnatural for the shaved, well groomed domesticated ape.