Wild camping - between love of nature and irrational fear
I love wild camping: planning for it, dreaming of nights outdoors, waking up alone in Nature, and enjoying the freedom to skip hotel or camp site.
But I am also always scared. The fear starts creeping in as the sun goes down. Even the smallest noise around the tent keeps me alert. Getting out for a pee requires all my will power, or a desperate bladder. My sleep is so shallow that a leaf brushing the tent or a gust of wind wakes me up. When the morning finally arrives, I feel more tired than when I went to bed.
It is a totally irrational fear. I am not camping in Northern Canada or Alaska, where there is a real risk of deadly bear attack. I am in the Alps, or in Scotland, where the worst that can happen is a fox stealing my sandwich, or a sheep coming to lick my tent.
On the bright side, it is a perfect training for being fully tuned to the world around me and not be distracted by thoughts, which in this situation would feel like a relief.
I tried various strategies to fight the fear, none of them convincing. I texted friends, hoping their rationality would help, but my fear ignores reason. Phone calls are worse: the idea of being heard by “something” outside the tent only amplifies the fear. I pitched my tent closer to houses, but somehow humans feel more threatening than wildlife. I exhausted myself during the day to crash asleep when night falls, but nothing has been tiring enough to silence my brain.
It’s incredible how powerful the mind is. How it can shape behaviour completely against our will and spoil the day (or, in this case, the night). Rarely have I so clearly touched what spiritual teachers keep repeating: you are not your mind. And if I had any hope, the way fear dominates my wild-camping experience shows how far I am from enlightenment.
Here you go, I might have found the perfect motivation to meditate daily, together with a way to measure my progress: how many hours I manage to sleep while wild camping.
