Charlie Verderame
The first part of this assignment came uncomfortably easy for me. I spend most of my day on social media or in YouTube wormholes, with the only breaks coming from sleep or driving. I am thoroughly addicted to my phone. I spent about a half hour on Facebook and saw the usual. I am a very political person, but I made a promise to myself that I would not argue with strangers anymore, for my own sanity. So I scroll past articles on how Trump is siphoning military school funds to pay for his dumb wall, how Wilbur Ross is threatening to fire people who report about Hurricane Dorian, and another environmental regulation that’s being gutted so that oil companies can drill on public lands. After I get throughly hopeless, I go to youtube, which you could argue is social media at this point. I rewatch the Eagles Redskins highlights, and then I watch a video a new guitar instruction page I found about Slash licks in G major.
Then it was time to go into nature. I was down in Richmond for the weekend visiting friends and we decided to go down to Texas Beach, a small little beach cove on the James river. I split off from my group so I could really immerse myself. I’m walking along the path and saw so much wildlife. Birds, frogs, spiders, a snake that darted across the path right in front of me, and even spotted a praying mantis. I found a secluded spot to lay down and closed my eyes for a minute. The rustle of the trees from the wind, the rough water as it crashes over the rocks, I thought about how ships used to crash on those rocks and sink. I also thought about how long it had been since I’d done this, I used to go hiking all the time, but stopped because of work, school, and loss of energy and motivation to do anything but sleep and practice guitar in my downtime. I felt like the stress and built up trauma of the last few years slowly leech out of me with every breath. My chronic headaches went away in minutes, my vision felt sharper, and my body felt ten pounds lighter. It was like therapy without having to talk to anyone, and it was free.
When you’re in the middle of the hustle and bustle of life, you start to believe that our modern way of life is the best way to live. When you get out into nature, you start to realize that thinking is wrong. We call people who live in the woods or in nature hippies, rednecks, bums, etc, but you start to wonder who’s got it right, or more importantly, who’s happier? The people who are constantly moving and stimulated, or the people who can just lay on a beach sometime and just do nothing?