Inspired By: Manhood for Amateurs | The Wilderness of Childhood | by Michael Chabon | The New York Review | July 16, 2009
A Slice of Wilderness
I was lying in bed wanting to sleep. I buried my face in the pillow and started thinking about all the wildernesses I’ve had for 60 years.
Then I roused myself enough to do a websearch. I searched, worldwide, for any reference to the wildernesses inside of every city on Earth. I searched and narrowed and broadened, and finally got one result — only one. This one here, right below, 🌂 by Michael Chabon of all people! What a jolt.
The quote I’m printing in the next section below brings me to my own point. Humanity has lost touch with nature. This was a very recent event, and has gotten far worse every year for about 20 years now. You’ve all not only lost your way, you seem disinterested in even considering it as a possibility. And your lives are going to shit, BTW.
Here is what Chabon says:
“The thing that strikes me now when I think about the Wilderness of Childhood is the incredible degree of freedom my parents gave me to adventure there. A very grave, very significant shift in our idea of childhood has occurred since then. The Wilderness of Childhood is gone; the days of adventure are past. The land ruled by children, to which a kid might exile himself for at least some portion of every day from the neighboring kingdom of adulthood, has in large part been taken over, co-opted, colonized, and finally absorbed by the neighbors.”
I have to modify Chabon’s analysis now. He wrote those words in July of 2009. In the 11 years that have passed since he wrote this piece, I’m afraid to say that even the kingdom of adulthood is now gone. Nobody is free anymore, there are no adventures and nobody could possibly even find a wilderness close to home, if at all. Because who would try?
That was why I started writing this story yesterday! I was thinking about my wildernesses, which I’ve retained my entire life. Anywhere on the landmass of planet Earth, even in a dense city, you are only minutes, or at worst a couple of hours, away from a wilderness.
I’m betting that my city-dwelling readers are wondering what I’m talking about.
I’m not sure it’s worth trying. But who knows, if even one reader wants to try out the method I use and teach, well here it is.
Wherever you are right now, stand up and walk outside.
Start walking. Any direction. What you’re looking for is any place you can’t see. That’s right. Something somewhere that you should be able to see but just can’t quite. (This is why you want to be an inquisitive child, or have one with you. This’ll require imagination!)
Now, right there, look closely. You have a highway going through, but you can’t cross it because of the chain link fence on both sides. You can see some green trees way over on the other side, but don’t know what’s there . . . SEE! You’re looking for something you can’t see. You’ve found it, or a possibility!
This was a real-life discovery I made when I was 17, living in Goleta, California. I lived on one side of the highway, the trees were on the other. I found a storm drain pipe that ran under the whole deal, dumping storm water into a creek on my side. I crawled through that pipe, it seemed a quarter mile long, and came out in a field of weeds and native plants with a thick band of huge eucalyptus trees to the left. There was a road further away, but no houses or buildings nearby.
It was a wilderness, not a mile from my home.
That’s all I have to say. You’re either interested or not. I’m not trying to change the world. I’m not sure I could. But out of the billions of people on Earth, I’d think at least one might make use of what I know. Even in that case, I’ve said enough to get your started.
FRED
