Oh Nature Oh My

The natural world is something everyone thinks would be wonderful to return to. Some go camping and laud the fine time spent out in the woods under a tent laid on dirt and crawling around on hands and knees to dress and sleep and eat. Camping looks all very jolly on the outside, on good days, when it is not raining and cold, when you can find a hot shower in the evening and eat food that goes beyond canned meat, stale bread and pork and beans. The only people I know who truly enjoy actual camping as opposed to the kind that carts along a truck load of equipment and every amenity one can buy to make life as close to normal as possible in the woods, are those who adore being dirty, hungry, thirsty and cold. Who are those people? What is great about camping, is getting back home and remembering the days camping, when the sun shone, the lake water was warm and the camp fire circle was memorable. The rest we try to forget. Be honest campers. We are a spoiled bunch of humans because if we really liked true camping, why did we progress from cave to condo? If it was so rewarding and fine, we could have gone on for centuries reading paintings on the walls, fighting off and eating wild animals and digging up roots to eat. No, the first time Man picked up a sharp rock and shaved, the first time some raw meat fell into the fire and became barbecue, when he and she could find a dry cave to shelter in, Man began planning how to improve his lifestyle. Now, we don't bake bread without at least one machine to help out, clean without a cupboard full of fluids and equipment, eat without a table full of crockery and metal, sleep without a soft mattress and a pile of down, travel without a heater and AC and music, or go about without pricey clompers on our feet and designer labels on our backs. We've come a long way. Or have we? When we spoiled, self-indulgent beings have to go to a machine laden room to "exercise" or run miles for absolutely no reason, to deliberately starve ourselves skinny when there's plenty of good food to be had, drive big metal objects around that cost a whole year or two of labour and then turn around and get rid of them because there's a new model, whack little or big balls around for fun and get mad at them when they won't obey, dump a marital union that produced wedded promises and kids when nobody took the time to work at them and anyway, there's somebody else prettier to run to, then,  at the end of life as we know it, get smart and quit all the nonsense when it's too late and die. What in the world are we doing? Not camping.