An inconvenient truth
On camping, faff, and being more present
‘It’s a grand thing to get leave to live’
Nan Shepherd
Camping is divisive, like marmite, but with tents and sporks. I’m just back from a family camping trip which was enriching, and not just because it’s a cheap holiday - though admittedly, I find the thrift of it quite a thrill. I slept terribly, ate averagely, and found the whole endeavour rather uphill when compared to everyday life, accustomed as I am to a dishwasher, bed, and hot water on tap. Why did I willingly endure the frictions of camping, when a less onerous life was freely available? This is surely the implicit question camping un-enthusiasts puzzled over when I told them of holiday plans. I’ll resist the temptation to pull out an arsenal of worthy-sounding arguments in support of camping, and settle for just one - the value of inconvenience.
“The world is too much with us” Wrote Wordsworth as the industrial revolution was underway - ‘Getting and spending we lay waste our powers’. His concern was provoked by the consumerism he saw taking root in society. Within this same cultural drift he spoke of, we were slipped the lie that a convenient and efficient life is somehow a better life, unencumbered by the daily hassles our ancestors lived with. Hassle is something we can purchase our way out of with labour saving technologies. I don’t want to sound ungrateful for modern tech - I’d far rather visit a dentist in this century than previous ones, and I’m delighted that clean water comes out of my taps. Though a life too much bathed in the tepid waters of convenience is a shallow one, and can lack a sense of substance and meaning.
Convenience technologies
The writer
wrote an excellent essay on the late Albert Borgmann, where he laments the way that ‘convenience technologies’ have given us less satisfying lives. A convenience technology is one that requires little effort and delivers predictable results, central heating being a good case in point. Demanding technologies on the other hand, require focus and skill and do not have entirely predictable results - building a fire being the apposite example. These are intrinsically rewarding - who hasn’t built a fire and felt the need to announce it to someone with barely concealed pride? The same cannot be said for turning up the thermostat. Demanding technologies are also often communal - gathering people together around a fire, rather than allowing them to sit in well heated bedrooms glued to their screens.I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this, but let me go a little further than that. When existence is more demanding it not only feels more rewarding, it’s also a way of inhabiting and, if you’ll allow it, enchanting the present moment more fully. When the simple things of life are made harder to acquire - a meal, or a bed for example, we become more present to them. I am also more present to those I am with. It is no coincidence that relationships are often more rewarding when camping, which is surely a consequence of the joint attention needed to get through basic life tasks. As I discussed in a podcast with Oliver Burkeman, there is no persuasive design or gamificiation to those things we find most meaningful in life. In a convenience culture we need to consciously seek them out. Building ones’ own dwelling, sleeping on the ground, cooking over a fire - these are not just hassles to be tolerated, they can be portals back into the present moment.
The present is always here.
A disposition of presence is something I consciously struggle with, as I’m sure do many of you. This is partly because of the economy in general, and the attention economy more specifically. I regularly catch myself possessed by a joyless drive to rush through lengthy to-do lists in order to fend off feelings of inadequacy or inefficiency. It’s a compulsion I was reared into, and one that I’m probably passing onto my children - though there is little satisfaction or enjoyment from any activity carried out in this fashion. Stripping life back to basics is one way of shattering the illusion that we can get to the end of that to do list and find that elusive sense of rest.
While I am one of those people who actually likes camping, and marmite while we’re at it - I do think there are easier and more accessible ways back into the present moment. My latest podcast episode with Jill Bolte-Taylor points towards an evidence base for this. Jill worked as a neuroanatomist at Harvard when she suffered a major stroke in her left hemisphere. Once she had rehabilitated and collected her faculties, she was able write and speak about this experience, and how it changed her perspective. One of her big insights is that we have within our brains, at a cellular level, different ways of attending. These have different values and characteristics, and can shape us into very different people. There are different versions of Kenny you will find, depending on what brain cells I’m allowing to direct my attention. It’s a thesis which maps very closely onto Iain McGilchrist’s central hypothesis on the hemispheres (Jill appeared in this documentary about his work).
You’ll have to listen to the conversation or read her book to get a fuller understanding, but the main idea is this - our culture often encourages the egocentric left brain mode of attending. However, we have it within us to attend with the right hemisphere - which is present to the moment, and sees our interconnection to the world around us - Jill had a very profound experience of this when she suffered her stroke. This kind of attention is available to us, but requires deliberate choice to inhabit it. Getting into nature and camping happens to be one way I have found of doing this. I hope to explore more of these in future newsletters.
As ever, do please reply to this if you get the notion - I’d love to hear from you.