Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity…” -John Muir
It’s astounding to realize how true those words ring though they were penned over 100 years ago. We are certainly in a world that is “over-civilized” and if Mr. Muir could look at us now, he would be running for deeper woods and climbing higher peaks.
There’s an unmistakeable connection between men and nature, though most of us live in denial of it. It is so easy to get wrapped up in our day-to-day life that we forget all about the places of our childhood that gave us inspiration, the wild spaces that caused us to dream big. It’s virtually impossible to stand on top of a mountain or overlook a vast canyon and not be silenced by the awe of it all. Provoking a good type of humbling, the largeness of the wild makes us realize how small we actually are, yet how important at the same time.
But now that we live in a world where we don’t need to hunt and forage for food, we have to be much more intentional about getting into the outdoors. Wilderness Collective is trying to encourage all men to rediscover and reconnect with wild spaces. Sometimes that looks like enjoying the benefits of our modern world (engines, propane stoves, and GPS) and other times we need to get out there on our own two feet with a bag of trail mix and a knife in our hand and see what happens.
It’s not how you get into the wild that matters, it’s not even what you do in the wild that makes the man…it’s how you respond to the wild.
Do you take the time to be still, to let the beauty of the natural world silence all the noise in your mind?
The great men before us discovered the secret balance of a “civilized” life fueled by regular forays into the wild–a practice we must now deem as priority in our lives, so the wild can also be our solace of “going home.”