This summer I spent some time in the Austrian mountains. I enjoyed it so much that I bought hiking boots in a small specialist store in Vienna. After reading your piece, all the happy anticipation has gone awry. Just kidding. I immediately bought your idea of „insignificance and indifference“; it actually resonates with a piece on „minerality“ I’ve written recently. However, thinking a little more about it, I started wondering if there is an even deeper layer to the topic, which is an aversion against pretension or even intentionality. Sometimes, a landscape or an artwork transforms the viewer; sometimes, they don’t, even though they’re supposed to. Isn’t it the suggestion of a guaranteed result that bothers you in the outdoor store and self-help books? So, the „moral“ might as well be to drop expectations instead of excluding particular experiences as a possible outcome.
One big way that looking at natural landscapes is different from looking at art is that it's completely removed, as you say, from human intention — and perhaps that makes it more "pure." And I do think it's a good practice to let go of expectations for how one shoud feel in the face of certain experiences.
I think the importance of the "outdoors" isn't necessarily the outdoors itself but in the realization that we are infinitesimally small in comparison to all that is around us, whether just outside in our small physical world or the grander much bigger universe!
Humans are indeed somewhat special animals who seem to think that no others are capable of the introspection and wonder about our "place" in everything. What if we aren't though? What if the octopus or dolphins have that capability and we just can't understand them?
I think it is that understanding that no matter how much we think about ourselves and the attendant hubris that follows it is the importance of seeing ourselves as no better or worse than the rest of life and the universe as a whole. I often get down sometimes at the way things are going, but it is all part of life; moods, up and down, come and go. Without the duality of nature we would never know the opposites and the fullness of it all.
Maybe we should just be thankful to be a part of it and marvel at how incredibly complex, mysterious, delightful and joyous it all is! What is it all about? Who knows and who cares. Maybe we will find out as part of some afterlife experience or maybe we won't?
Anything that gets you out of your head and out of your context (if you're an overthinker) has the potential to be a good thing, if it can counteract the ego. Unfortunately I have never been able to be 'zen' about things. I do think nature is something to be appreciated and enjoyed, but there's important work to do inside the enclosures too.
I think you are entirely correct about the issue of "getting out of your head." I suspect that is the main issue for far too many and I suffered the same way in my earlier years.
I was a driven, goal-oriented individual, especially in my early career as a military pilot on a career path. Luckily, despite having spent time attending one of the service schools with that goal in mind I realized that my real love was the flying itself! All the "other" stuff was window dressing. The decision I made was the toughest I'd made to that point having grown up a brat and not knowing anything else. After a year of hanging and waiting flying general aviation I landed with a major airline. The interim year was fun and I learned a completely different side of aviation which stood me in good stead later. It was grueling though with extremely long work weeks and low pay. After landing in a situation where excellence was internalized (seniority systems means that you progress not on ability but on time/movement) I started to settle and lose my "type A" issues. Most aviators have big egos and are always wanting to do the best so that issue was still there. Advancement in life/career was now almost entirely a a function of what I wanted. The better pay also took a lot of worries off my shoulders.
I do a lot of reading and am broadly educated so I started looking around me and that is where my unorthodox spirituality started to light up my life. I think my intense curiosity has helped fuel my need to know more. I also am aware that having retired I have pretty much settled and am very content. Yes, I worry about family including kids and grandchildren etc. with the sheer number of what I consider existential issues for humanity but I have also come to accept I can only do what I can, no more and no less.
I am aware that one person's experience my mean very little to any other person, except maybe those closest to them but I see us all as just trying to make do as best we can. I have read that writing can sometimes help allay our feelings, heck, there are innumerable things to aid us. Find what is best for you and good luck on your journey!
It's funny how the things and the people we think are important in one year fade away in the next. I catch myself thinking about some professional conflict that made me lose sleep, or suffering over a man, and marveling how easily it all fades away.
I appreciate this point of view. The vision of the early people trying to find a room in which to have their thoughts away from the vast indifference of nature is quite compelling. I think when people online urge other people to get into nature, "nature" is code for any experience of the real world away from a screen. I suspect the grass we're urged to touch is the tiny lawn in the front of our apartment complex.
I think we should bring back the distinction between "beautiful" and "sublime" precisely for moments like these. (Been ages since I read Burke, but there's definitely some utility in a word for "beauty that does not exist for your enjoyment")
Sublime is indeed a useful word, although what I'm getting at is a shade different from "sublime" as I understand it — I'm not thinking of an experience of being awed by incomprehensible vastness or power, or an encounter with the divine, but being surrounded by a kind of indifference that plunges us back into the self.
Sometimes people tell me they want more personal posts, but they're almost always people who know me in real life — I assume it's not very interesting to anyone else. In a way I think all my posts are very personal because they're about things that are important to me!
This summer I spent some time in the Austrian mountains. I enjoyed it so much that I bought hiking boots in a small specialist store in Vienna. After reading your piece, all the happy anticipation has gone awry. Just kidding. I immediately bought your idea of „insignificance and indifference“; it actually resonates with a piece on „minerality“ I’ve written recently. However, thinking a little more about it, I started wondering if there is an even deeper layer to the topic, which is an aversion against pretension or even intentionality. Sometimes, a landscape or an artwork transforms the viewer; sometimes, they don’t, even though they’re supposed to. Isn’t it the suggestion of a guaranteed result that bothers you in the outdoor store and self-help books? So, the „moral“ might as well be to drop expectations instead of excluding particular experiences as a possible outcome.
One big way that looking at natural landscapes is different from looking at art is that it's completely removed, as you say, from human intention — and perhaps that makes it more "pure." And I do think it's a good practice to let go of expectations for how one shoud feel in the face of certain experiences.
I think the importance of the "outdoors" isn't necessarily the outdoors itself but in the realization that we are infinitesimally small in comparison to all that is around us, whether just outside in our small physical world or the grander much bigger universe!
Humans are indeed somewhat special animals who seem to think that no others are capable of the introspection and wonder about our "place" in everything. What if we aren't though? What if the octopus or dolphins have that capability and we just can't understand them?
I think it is that understanding that no matter how much we think about ourselves and the attendant hubris that follows it is the importance of seeing ourselves as no better or worse than the rest of life and the universe as a whole. I often get down sometimes at the way things are going, but it is all part of life; moods, up and down, come and go. Without the duality of nature we would never know the opposites and the fullness of it all.
Maybe we should just be thankful to be a part of it and marvel at how incredibly complex, mysterious, delightful and joyous it all is! What is it all about? Who knows and who cares. Maybe we will find out as part of some afterlife experience or maybe we won't?
Anything that gets you out of your head and out of your context (if you're an overthinker) has the potential to be a good thing, if it can counteract the ego. Unfortunately I have never been able to be 'zen' about things. I do think nature is something to be appreciated and enjoyed, but there's important work to do inside the enclosures too.
Cecily,
I think you are entirely correct about the issue of "getting out of your head." I suspect that is the main issue for far too many and I suffered the same way in my earlier years.
I was a driven, goal-oriented individual, especially in my early career as a military pilot on a career path. Luckily, despite having spent time attending one of the service schools with that goal in mind I realized that my real love was the flying itself! All the "other" stuff was window dressing. The decision I made was the toughest I'd made to that point having grown up a brat and not knowing anything else. After a year of hanging and waiting flying general aviation I landed with a major airline. The interim year was fun and I learned a completely different side of aviation which stood me in good stead later. It was grueling though with extremely long work weeks and low pay. After landing in a situation where excellence was internalized (seniority systems means that you progress not on ability but on time/movement) I started to settle and lose my "type A" issues. Most aviators have big egos and are always wanting to do the best so that issue was still there. Advancement in life/career was now almost entirely a a function of what I wanted. The better pay also took a lot of worries off my shoulders.
I do a lot of reading and am broadly educated so I started looking around me and that is where my unorthodox spirituality started to light up my life. I think my intense curiosity has helped fuel my need to know more. I also am aware that having retired I have pretty much settled and am very content. Yes, I worry about family including kids and grandchildren etc. with the sheer number of what I consider existential issues for humanity but I have also come to accept I can only do what I can, no more and no less.
I am aware that one person's experience my mean very little to any other person, except maybe those closest to them but I see us all as just trying to make do as best we can. I have read that writing can sometimes help allay our feelings, heck, there are innumerable things to aid us. Find what is best for you and good luck on your journey!
It's funny how the things and the people we think are important in one year fade away in the next. I catch myself thinking about some professional conflict that made me lose sleep, or suffering over a man, and marveling how easily it all fades away.
I appreciate this point of view. The vision of the early people trying to find a room in which to have their thoughts away from the vast indifference of nature is quite compelling. I think when people online urge other people to get into nature, "nature" is code for any experience of the real world away from a screen. I suspect the grass we're urged to touch is the tiny lawn in the front of our apartment complex.
Any experience away from a screen — most definitely. Especially if interactions with the non-online are involved.
I think we should bring back the distinction between "beautiful" and "sublime" precisely for moments like these. (Been ages since I read Burke, but there's definitely some utility in a word for "beauty that does not exist for your enjoyment")
Sublime is indeed a useful word, although what I'm getting at is a shade different from "sublime" as I understand it — I'm not thinking of an experience of being awed by incomprehensible vastness or power, or an encounter with the divine, but being surrounded by a kind of indifference that plunges us back into the self.
I'm with you on the gratitude journals.
Aren't they dreadful?
Lol! This post is such a departure for you! It's so pithy and personal. I kinda liked it!
Haha, I'll take it!
Yeah I was like wait a second, I've been reading this Substack for a year, and this is the first time I've actually learned things about Cecily!
Sometimes people tell me they want more personal posts, but they're almost always people who know me in real life — I assume it's not very interesting to anyone else. In a way I think all my posts are very personal because they're about things that are important to me!