What will you die without?

Normally when I pack to go on vacation I start to worry I’ve forgotten something crucial, and develop the sudden urge to grab all the extra odds and ends I can find. I then ask myself this question: what will you die without? It’s in that moment that my muscles relax and my heart rate slows because as the scenarios run through my head I realize that if I forget my tooth brush, I’ll have bad breath till I buy a new one, if I forget extra clothes I at least have the ones on my back , I can buy food, I can go indoors if I’m too cold. As long as I have my wallet with my ID and money, my debit card and a cell phone (which even that I would survive without) I’m going to make it. Even with nothing there are people and buildings everywhere! Someone will help me. But today was a different story. As I packed my backpack with what I needed for a one night stay in the Alaska wilderness I began to wonder if I was forgetting anything; I asked myself the question: what will I die without? Suddenly this question became much more serious. I had to make sure I had warm enough clothing, the right shoes, enough food to eat, good enough shelter and sleeping bag, and the right survival supplies, because if I didn’t pack them, no amount of cash in my wallet would count for anything. Living in the city, or at least within civilization where people and climate control have got your back makes life so much safer and tamer. Your focus in life is so much different. But in the wild, even when you’re sweating and hiking up a mountain, there’s an amount of detox and relaxation taking place. Life is no longer about pleasure and hobbies—or whatever fills our actions and time. It’s about feeling the temperature and predicting the weather. It’s about taking every decision seriously, never being lazy not worrying about what looks good, working hard and never taking the easy way out. It’s freeing, it’s simpler, and much more meaningful. There are no distractions from what’s important—your existence is focused around what’s important: survival and living on the earth as it was meant to be.

7/17/11

Photograph by Kellen Stock