Michael Elliott
I started out my electronic immersion hour like I usually spend most of my evenings. I turned on my Apple TV, opened up Hulu and started watching one of my favorite shows. As time went by, my focus weaned from the television and towards my phone, a compulsion. I opened up Instagram and started scrolling through my feed. Pictures of attractive people, foreign lands, and friends doing exciting things. As I scroll through the photos of my friends and photos of people I admire. images would appear from people or organizations I didn’t know. the were mainly just sponsored advertisements for Marriott hotels or new cars or even bottled water. To be honest, it’s mainly just White Noise I look through, nothing substantial, or real achievements, honestly it’s mostly people taking selfies by a brick building and writing some quote about loving life. I didn’t receive any emotional gratification or fulfillment from it. At the end of my one hour electronic session I was left feeling just as empty as I was before.
For my outdoor immersion hour I decided to go kayaking on a local river with a friend. It started out being hot that day, but a breeze from the west brought in some darker clouds and a more constant breeze. It made it out for a fantastic day to be on the water. At first as we kayaked towards the middle of the river my friend and I exchanged normal conversation, nothing too shallow but nothing too deep, but the longer we spent out on the water the quieter we became. Not because we didn’t want to speak to each other, but because we were enjoying simply, nature. We both felt very connected and peaceful out on the water as we kayaked towards low cliffs and a nearby forest. To be honest with you, almost three hours went by and I hadn’t noticed. At the end of this engagement I felt more fulfilled and more balanced than I had felt during the electronic immersion.
As I reflect back on both experiences I’ve come to the realization that in normal day-to-day life there is too much noise. The noise from the entertainment industry, the beauty industry, and just about every other industry is trying to blast you with information and trying to get your attention. There’s just so much information out there it’s hard to sift through it! On the other hand, nature isn’t sending you a direct message on your Instagram or blasting an ad on every electronic device you have, she’s always out there just waiting with an open invitation. This is why I believe spending time in nature without any distractions is so healing, because all the noise just fades away.