I recently watched a video that aligns so deeply with how I feel and how I currently go about in my life. There was also much in it about how I see (a great part of) fulfillment of life. I’d like to share the gist of it with you. Yet, first I’ll give you a (rather long) quote from the video, spoken by a 90 year old guy… still hiking:
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“I don’t see myself as being a Guru or giving advice to anyone on how they should live their lives. We’ve all got to find our own path in life and follow it. Mine has led through the woods. It was outdoor life in nature. I resonate with it. I suppose… it’s what I want… what I’ve always wanted. It brings great joy. You’re surrounded by life in all its forms… animals, birds, insects, plants, trees. There’s a regeneration of life taking place all the time. In the woods is perpetual youth, and maybe being in the woods has kept me perpetually young. I’d like to think so.”
Well, it’s very much like how I experience my life. In fact, during all my adult life I went seeking for it, perhaps because I grew up with Nature when I was a child. I lost that when I emigrated to Europe (I was fifteen then) and living twenty-five years in modern society, as it’s called. When I finally broke loose, it still took me several attempts living near and in Nature for quite some years, before I found what I was looking for; the balance.
The balance of living very close to pristine Nature (not more than two kilometers away) and at the same time living in a small overseeable, calm village that supplies all the basic comforts and necessities I need to be able to survive in this world.
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I feel, I know, that being so close to Nature and being able to hike two, three times a week in the mountains and forests is keeping me sane, healthy (as far as it goes when getting older), young and youthful… alive. I’m grateful that life has given this to me. Sure, I looked for it. But it’s not easy to find the right conditions. You need to have a little bit of luck going with it. I think I had that luck.
How can I express this? I don’t really know. To be in, near, with the trees, mountains, the seasons… with so many animals, mushrooms, plants and trees… the cold, the hot, the drought, the abundance of rains, this grand experience immersed in it… again and again, repeating itself, yet always a bit different.
How to explain this addiction to magnificent views, the wonder, the peace, silence, the feel in body and mind, this letting go, the grandness? I still don’t know. You need to see it, feel it, live it. Love it. You need to love Nature and love walking through it. And moreover, you need to want it.
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