The Nature Effect - Theories Welcome

[Guest guest]

Howdy Christina,

 

> I consider myself pretty sense-aware, like most members of this group.

> I take time to smell the flowers, watch the ducks play, etc. And I get out

> for walks regularly. I'm in urban surroundings most of the time, though.

 

Hang in there .. some day you will have options .. like when your or Chris

don't have to work for the other feller .. like in retired or semi retired.

But I'm thinking that odds are pretty good that the option you will choose

then will be urban living. ;-)

 

 

> So last week I went camping (it was a cabin, but whatever), and we rushed

> to get up there on Friday Afternoon. Way off in the distance I could hear

a

> bird, and the creek was running, but sounded far away. There was a slight

> breeze. That was it. Things were green, but nothing was distinct.

 

Most likely you have become accustomed to having lots of traffic and two

laig critters around you on a daily basis .. that can make one feel crowded

when they're not crowded. Lots of folks like that feeling .. I know folks

who think living in Manhattan is about as good as life can get. If they go

to up state New York for a few days they get into the swing of things but

they miss the hustle and bustle of the city .. so they really don't have a

good connection with their temporary surroundings because they are wired for

the city life and though they can physically leave it behind .. mentally its

still with them.

 

> By the next morning, every detail was rich and clear, little things were

> amazing. The creek could be heard, loudly, from our campsite, and the

> water looked refreshing. The birds were making a beautiful noise that

> was unavoidable. The smell of the sea mixed with the earthy aroma of

> the mulch under trees. I walked in the dirt barefoot, and saw the beauty

> in a fallen pine branch. I couldn't help but take tons of pictures. It was

> like that until I left.

 

You walked barefoot through the soil and decaying organic matter .. you left

the dirt back behind you .. in the city. ;-)

 

> So what made the difference?

 

I think that maybe your rhythm was slowly changing .. you were temporarily

escaping your own reality .. sometimes it takes a while to change our mental

gears. My experience has been that all folks can't do it even in time .. so

you were maybe lucky.

 

> Does stress really muffle our senses that much?

 

I reckon it depends on how folks want to define stress. The way most folks

see it .. odds are that it does muffle our senses .. and more. But stress

is not always a bad thing .. I have thrived on stress my entire life ..

still do. Being able to relieve stress instead of storing it .. and then

moving on to other stressful situations makes life more interesting and

helps to avoid boredom .. at least that's my take on it. I spent the last

19+ years (till last summer) living in cities .. in Turkey. From a stand

point of crimes against persons the cities there are far safer than most in

the USA but we still had to be alert because of crazy drivers and the

occasional nutty terrorist bomber .. but it was a different kind of stress

... it was like exhilarating. Most of that time I was single and could

relieve my stress nights by heading down to my favorite pub and shooting the

crap with the guys and gals over a few Rakis or Efes Beers .. then go with

the flow that night and then start the new day with whatever new stressful

event popped up.

 

Then I got married and we had a son and moved to the USA. Now that we live

outside the city .. in the county .. and have a nice piece of land with no

close neighbors. I find that now my ways of relieving stress are

different and just as effective .. though less costly and there is no

occasional hangover. ;-)

 

Do I still have stress? Yep .. thankfully. Just a different kind now ..

I used to deal in international political-military matters and I believed

that my efforts were appreciated even though my recommendations were not

always accepted .. now I sometimes feel stressed when I read of city council

meetings where they discuss problems but nobody seems to have any logical

recommendations on how to solve them .. I expect there is more to it than a

lack of logic but I've not been here long enough to get a handle on who the

Gud Ol' Boys & Gals are. I am also stressed a bit because I want to not

care all that much what is going down on the international scene but when I

avoid the news I feel like I am going through withdrawal of the worst kind.

;-)

 

I have forty eleven projects yet to be accomplished here and its stressful

when I am working outside and have to stop for a toad strangling rain .. or

a series of tornado's like we had on Super Tuesday .. I was stressed big

time then because we had planted a long line of Red Maples a few months ago

and I feared that they were going to be broken down to the ground .. or

maybe the house would take wings and leave the Red Maples behind .. but all

that stress was relieved when the tornado's hit on both sides of us and left

us with nothing but a few broken limbs on older trees. What I am getting at

... I reckon .. is that facing what appear to be challenges or obstacles to

accomplishing what we want to make happen or have happen is healthy and if

we are lucky enough to be able to recognize when its time to admit that we

can't change things and reroute our efforts so we can avoid feeling

overwhelmed. There are things we don't have the power or authority to

change or accomplish and its wise to recognize them and not feel like they

are stomping us into the ground. So when it rains cats and dogs now I just

try to avoid stepping into a poodle while I head for the house and wait it

out. If I don't soon have us better prepared to handle another twister I

have all kinds of valid reasons to be stressed .. and oughta have my butt

kicked too. ;-)

 

Does stress muffle our senses? I think that while in Turkey urban living

and crowds and automobile fumes muffled my sense of everything that was

important in life. But I have cast off that muffler now. I have not

unpacked all of the boxes we brought from Turkey .. I know what is in them

and they are safely stored in my aluminum barn .. I might not unpack some of

them until I'm ready to give them to the Salvation Army .. like the ones

with my tux and some suits and ties .. I can think of a use for the many

ties I have .. folks always need a few things like that to tie up tomato

plants or straighten up young saplings and such .. but aside from maybe two

suits and a couple of jackets I can't find a use for the tux or the other

clothes now. Blue jeans and flannel shirts are more appropriate for my

present lifestyle. Hank Willams, Jr. lives part time here in Paris, TN and

even Old Bocephus himself doesn't get all dressed up when he comes to town

... and .. his nose is never up in the air. ;-)

 

> Is there another reason? Do people who live in more natural settings

> not lose that sense of being grounded and in touch with nature?

 

I think those who have never left natural surroundings would have a problem

understanding the question .. except for when they are required to drive in

a large city. Its like asking if someone somehow forgot who they are .. as

in amnesia or whatever.

 

I grew up in a rural area but left it right after high school because I

wanted more out of life. As a yonker when I was not working in a tobacco

patch I spent my time hunting and running in the hills, fields and woods and

swimming and fishing in the lakes and streams. I left that life and spent

30 years in uniform followed by 17 more years in a corporate and political

and diplomatic world. But when I returned to my Tennessee roots last summer

it took me around 24 hours to get back the proper rhythm. The wrong rhythm

is not all bad .. it defines what allows us to continue to tick when we are

forced to survive outside our natural environment .. but the proper rhythm

brings us back to who we really are.

 

Many folks are out of place in life. They do what they must and do it well

but its not always what they want to do. I consider such folks to be

mature, responsible folks .. as compared to those who nail their foot down

in one place and then walk around in circles peeing and moaning because they

can't reach all they believe they should be able to have.

 

Some don't do so well even when they are willing to escape their environment

... many violinists can perform well but few can pass the test of the

" Nashville Sound " .. if one doesn't get goose bumps when they visit the

Grand Ole Opry and watch a master fiddler like Charlie Daniels at work ..

they might be playing the wrong instrument because professional violinists

will usually admit that only those who have first mastered the violin can

become master fiddlers. If a wannabe soprano or baritone is watching a

performance of Madame Butterfly in Vienna .. because folks told them it was

the right thing to do if they wished to become an opera singer .. but all

the while they are hoping for a quick end to the performance so they can go

home and practice their kuntry music singing .. odds are they will not be

happy until they find their true rhythm. I enjoyed my time trying to be

the best I could be in the areas I chose to work in after retirement from

the Army .. but I was like the violinist who really wanted to be a fiddler

or the one who wanted to sing in the Grand Ole Opry instead of in Vienna.

Now I have found my rhythm again .. and because it was never really lost ..

just laid aside .. it was easy to get back into step.

 

My wife grew up in a city in Russia but she always preferred to spend

summers on her grandmother's farm .. so she adapted to this kuntry lifestyle

immediately .. no way does she want to leave the home place now for even a

vacation . My son (23 + months old) was born in Ankara and though he

visited the Rose Fields before age 4 months .. and traveled through 18

states in the USA before age 6 months .. life here is his first real

experience with nature and having a permanent home with his own trees and

grass and fields and dogs and such .. this life is the only one he can

really relate to. Even though we have been here but 7+ months I am sure

that there is no way either of them could be happy living in a city now ..

there are no open spaces and deer and rabbits and foxes and hawks and eagles

and hummingbirds and dozens of other flying critters in the city .. pigeons

on the balcony and rats in the gutters don't count. ;-)

Walking around our grounds with a Yellow Lab and a Beagle scouting ahead is

very lots of fun .. walking into the edge of the woods come evening and

watching the squirrels scampering around and playing grab butt is exciting

... watching deer and wild turkey come to feed behind our home or in the

plowed over corn fields beside our home is beautiful and peaceful.

Drinking our own well water that tastes (and tests) great is superior

to drinking the chemicals folks ten miles away .. in the city of Paris ..

must drink. Walking along the shore at Paris Landing on Kentucky Lake is

refreshing .. and educational for my son because most of the wild critters

in Tennessee can be seen from time to time along that shore .. no way to

walk it all .. there are over 2,400 miles of cove-studded shoreline on

Kentucky lake.

 

Now we are anxiously awaiting Green Up so we can plant our garden .. and

stress will come in late April or early May while we are hoping that a late

frost (like they had here last year) won't kill the blooms on our

fruit trees and berry bushes. But there is little I can do if it

happens .. the stress is not going to be overwhelming .. it will pass if

frost does come .. or doesn't come. ;-).

 

There is also a certain amount of stress knowing that we are not yet out of

the tornado season .. if we can make it till summer I will have a

professional storm shelter set in the ground behind our home .. its too wet

for that now .. but I would rather face a tornado than live in a big city ..

nobody is going to bother us out here in the county. Even the stress

regarding tornado's is nothing compared to that I lived with in Turkey where

we had tremors and major quakes from time to time .. and its less than folks

have living along the coasts in the USA who experience tropical storms ..

tornado's last an hour or so and if you are in a shelter all is well ..

there is no shelter from a very large quake and tropical storms can last for

days .. so we are on the lucky end of the stick in that regard.

 

> I bet there is a theory out there somewhere. If you've got one, please

> share.

 

Likely there are many theories .. folks who posted before me hit on some

good ones .. I'm just a bit more long winded than they were. ;-)

 

Folks who consider a trip to the kuntry to be relaxing vacation will

continue to go to the kuntry .. and if they like it they will be anxious to

return and likely all into a different temporary rhythm in quick time. I

am guessing that such folks .. who love the city life .. would probably be

excited every day if they visited us here in Henry County, Tennessee .. for

a while. What we live daily would be exciting for them at first but I

expect they would become bored after a few days because if they like the

city they are probably violinists .. not fiddlers. ;-)

 

Nature and natural surroundings are not something I want to experience now

and then .. its something I missed for 45 years and something that must be a

part of my every day .. now .. and I don't intend to not be a part of it for

the rest of the time I remain above snakes.

 

> Cheers,

> Christina

 

Sho'nuf .. same to you and yours. Y'all keep smiling. :-) Butch ..

http://www.AV-AT.com <http://www.av-at.com/>

 

PS: For those who might be interested in such things .. the 11th Annual

Great Backyard Bird Count is scheduled for 15-18 February .. the location is

... where ever you are. You can check it out .. and participate .. at this

link http://www.birdsource.org/