Without realizing it, we are becoming the world’s first indoor species.
—from The Path Ahead: the future of life outdoors
Summer. I still can’t quite believe sunrise here in the San Francisco Bay Area happens at around 5:45 am and sunset at 8:30 pm. The long days have arrived, and with them, an opportunity to consider just how we want to live with this summer of 2018. I keep coming back to the REI Report, The Path Ahead. It’s a document “…designed to provoke discussion by exploring nine ‘brutal truths’ juxtaposed with nine ‘beautiful possibilities.’”
One of the brutal truths presented is All Work/No Play.
The biggest reason that we have found that people are not getting out is time. When you think about busy, working families…you know, it’s very difficult.
The contrasting beautiful possibility that The Path Ahead writers offer is: Headspace, and they present the work of David Strayer, Professor of Psychology at The University of Utah, as an example. The writers explain: David “took 50 people outdoors for three days, no tech allowed. After the short backpacking trip, participants scored 50 percent better on creative problem-solving tasks.” A footnote in the report points readers to a 2016 National Geographic article by Florence Williams who joined David for one of the backpacking trips. You can read tales of her trip here which includes her experience getting hooked up to David’s portable EEG machine while she sat quietly overlooking the San Juan River.
I don’t believe there are any easy solutions here. I think The Path Ahead writers’ choice of the label brutal truths shows they don’t believe in easy solutions either. But if we can believe the research data that not only is nature restorative but it helps us to become better problem solvers, perhaps it would be a good idea to step away from our laptops, put our mobile phones in airplane mode, and get ourselves to a local park for a short walk.
When we return with our heads momentarily cleared, let’s consider how we might make some small, conscious tweaks in how we’re living this summer that will bump us more towards outdoor species than indoor species. Concerned about pushback from your tweens or teens? Read The Path Ahead report together and discuss it. Work together to identify your family priorities.
What I’m reading: Speaking of summer, I loved this short post by writer and parent Austin Kleon—Summer Reading Assignment.
