Get Real

I have at times made the statement that I grew up in the woods. No, my family didn’t live in a tree-house or anything like that, but the truth is that when I was a kid we often spent entire days, even weeks and months in the summer, outside. And growing up in the country, the fields and forests were our playground. Along with the many fond memories (sigh) I have from those days, I can’t help but wonder about how those experiences shaped me and my life.

And why do I bring the point up? Two reasons I guess. One, it’s summer. Two, I am afraid that children today are often deprived of those first hand experiences with nature. The consequences have yet to bear ripened fruit but we have to wonder just how significant this could all be. Often when we think about the subject we tend to think only of the sedentary lives so many children are living and the physical health problems that creates. Lack of physical exercise is a BIG problem, as attested by childhood obesity rates, but there are other issues that should concern us just as much.

Kids today know more about the world they live in than I did at their age, but the information is mostly second hand; that is to say that it is more of an intellectual understanding and less experiential. Even nature itself becomes an abstraction when you experience it all through electronic media.

I fear that children are becoming more and more disconnected from the ‘real world’. Take for example how today’s child thinks about the food they eat? Do they really know even where it actually comes from?

And what about how experiencing the natural world shapes our minds and hearts. As one author put it, “Nature brings a capacity for wonder and a connection with something real that is endlessly fascinating and largely outside human control.” Think about that. What does it do for us to live in a world where we have the illusion that we are able to understand everything and control everything?

I could go on but I think I’ll go outside …