
I stopped time by sitting in a forest for 24 hours - andyjohnson0
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/jan/24/wilderness-solo-splendid-isolation-stopped-time-sitting-in-a-forest-24-hours
======
HenryBemis
In a similar spirit, I was reading a few months back how we are ruining
today's children's imagination by keeping them busy every waking moment. The
problem (psychologists discussed) was that kids need to be bored, and once
they get bored they start day dreaming ([https://www.parent.com/5-surprising-
benefits-of-letting-your...](https://www.parent.com/5-surprising-benefits-of-
letting-your-children-get-bored/))

I started my journey to minimalism a year ago, that gave me time to get
"bored", be and feel less busy, meditate more, focus more, and I could find
new aspects of myself; boredom helped.

The article writes at some point: '..and thereby slowing your mind.." I found
this very liberating at yoga classes, where the savasana in the end of the
sessions is combined with guided meditation or with just complete silence. Let
the river if the mind Carey away the thoughts and the void/silence that will
exist will be the best tool for the brain.

~~~
mycall
Too much boredom can breed depression.

~~~
throwaway1777
I would suspect most people are nowhere close to that amount of boredom in an
age when down time is always filled by looking at a screen.

~~~
Aeolun
The screen may arguably be more likely to cause depression

------
leggomylibro
Part of me wonders how much of the author's sense of sublime isolation came
from getting away from his small children for a whole day :)

If you live across the pond in the US and have a free weekend, it's pretty
easy to do this sort of thing here, too.

Many national forests and lands administered by the BLM allow 'dispersed
camping' in the wilderness. You're encouraged to use existing sites along
forest roads, but the rules are usually pretty loose. Search engines don't do
a great job of indexing the USFS or BLM websites, so you might have to poke
around a bit to find a 'camping information' page for the area that you're
interested in. But you can find some basic information here:

[https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/camping](https://www.blm.gov/programs/recreation/camping)

Sadly, it's not all roses and sunshine. The author got told that he
technically needed a permit to be in the part of the wilderness that he
stumbled into, and you'll probably get some of that if you spend much time in
BLM lands. People throw up false 'private property' signs and gates all the
time, and those sorts of people tend to have the 'Cliven Bundy' sort of
attitude that they have more of a right to public lands than others. There's
no arguing about land usage with someone who points a gun towards you.

We also see the sort of aristocratic land grabs that he mentioned here; there
are a lot of BLM lands which are now surrounded by private property, and those
property owners are not required to provide access to the public lands which
they surround. It essentially cedes "multi-use" public lands to the
people/companies who own the properties around them.

It's too bad we don't have a right-to-roam in the US. It seems like the sort
of thing that would fit in with the ostensible national ethos of freedom and
independence.

~~~
pi-rat
> It's too bad we don't have a right-to-roam in the US. It seems like the sort
> of thing that would fit in with the ostensible national ethos of freedom and
> independence.

That’s something I’ve never understood about the US. You came late to the
“land grab” (compared with Europe), and different kinds of freedom are deeply
embedded in the culture. Ought to be perfect conditions for a proper “right to
roam” policy.

Here, we’ve the right to roam, you can camp almost anywhere on private and
public land as long as you clean up after yourself and camp at least 150m from
houses or cabins.

You’re allowed to pass by a house/cabin on you way, blocking passage is
illegal.

We’ve unrestricted access to the shoreline, even next to houses and cabins.
You can forage berries, etc, etc.

~~~
leggomylibro
Right? It's baffling.

But I think that it might have something to do with the near-religious
reverance with which Americans view absolute property rights. If you frame it
as a contest of "freedom and liberty" vs "get off my property or I'll shoot",
then it makes a bit more sense. There's a certain segment of the population
who are just itching for an excuse to shoot a 'bad guy', which is one of those
things that makes exploring this nation so... interesting.

Still, I like to think that there's a reason why 'property' got replaced with
'the pursuit of happiness' when Locke's basic rights were enumerated in the
Declaration of Independence.

------
pier25
Great read. It reminded me of that time some 15 years ago when I did a 12 day
Vipassana silent retreat.

I completely lost track of the days. I remember one day waking up assuming it
was the last day. I started packing up until someone told me there were still
2 days left. We both started counting the days and we had this really strong
mind fog. Somehow the mind had slowed down so much that even very basic
addition was a difficult thing to do.

To be honest, it wasn't a particularly enlightening experience like other
stuff I've done. I vividly remember the strange feeling of joy and wonder of
coming back to the real world. As if we were entering into an awesome
simulation.

~~~
monktastic1
I'm reminded of this section of a teaching from a Dzogchen master. (Dzogchen
is the highest practice in Tibetan Buddhism, and perhaps considered a bit
heterodox by other schools):

 _According to the general vehicles_ [other schools of Buddhism] _, to dwell
undistractedly in nowness is to be undistracted. But from the Dzogchen
perspective, that is called being distracted. Dwelling on nowness means you
are already distracted. Why? Because you are dwelling on something,
repeatedly. The awareness is directed towards something which is not rigpa_
[roughly: nondual awareness itself] _. When there is a split between the rigpa
and something other, you are already distracted._

 _There is some risk of misunderstanding this matter, if you only get half of
this message, the nonmeditation part, and you miss the first part, which is to
remain undistracted. It would be easy then to simply not meditate! But that
wouldn’t make any sense. People who are already not meditating are constantly
being carried away by the three poisons of attachment, aversion or dullness.
That is not meditating at all, so if one is told “don’t meditate” in that
situation, that makes no sense at all._

 _On the other hand, if we pay attention only to the first part, ‘be
undistracted,’ it might seem like we have to remain mindful of whatever takes
place: “Now I’m walking. Now I’m putting my foot down. Oh, there’s a pink
flower. The air is touching my skin. I’m breathing in. Here is a thought
coming. There is the thought going. Now I am angry. Now I have some desire.
Now it is leaving again.” In the normal sense of the word one is certainly
undistracted, but there is no sense of freedom. You are not liberated at all.
It’s like you’re a shepherd totally involved in watching your sheep or goats:
“Now they are going up the hill over there... now they are coming back down...
oh, they shouldn’t wander too far... now they are going up another hill... now
it’s five o’clock, I should gather them all together and go home.” That type
of practice is called “maintaining the meditation.” You are herding the
meditation, keeping constant watch. Dzogchen practice is not like that.
Instead, meditate without being distracted at all, and without “keeping” a
meditation._

 _If we aren’t able to maintain a free and easy attitude, we will never have
good meditations. During these few days up here at Nagi Gompa, give up any
anxieties, hopes, fears or worries. Just leave them all behind. There is
nothing you need to do. There is no office you need to go to, no long-distance
phone calls to make, no faxes to reply to. Let go of the whole thing. Let go,
let go and let go, until there is nothing more to let go of. Let go until that
point._

~~~
pier25
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this.

Is this from a book?

~~~
monktastic1
Very welcome. Yes, it's from Carefree Dignity by Tsoknyi Rinpoche:
[https://www.amazon.com/Carefree-Dignity-Tsoknyi-Rinpoche-
ebo...](https://www.amazon.com/Carefree-Dignity-Tsoknyi-Rinpoche-
ebook/dp/B00H6UOIIW)

------
theNJR
Every year I disconnect and do a five day food, people and tech fast. I wrote
a little guide on my process [0] If you want to try it yourself.

I find this to be a critical yearly reset. Simple but difficult.

[0] [https://www.nicholasjrobinson.com/blog/general/five-day-
fast...](https://www.nicholasjrobinson.com/blog/general/five-day-fasting-
guide-freedom-from-food-people-and-technology)

------
sneak
> _As weirdly counterintuitive as it feels to acknowledge, human beings are
> not naturally predisposed to think of life in terms of seconds and hours, of
> how they might be optimised._

Other merits of this article aside, it always perplexes me that the works of
man are somehow regarded as outside or in opposition to “nature”, as if an
atomic clock with seconds display is somehow less natural than a beaver’s dam.

Both are entirely natural processes, produced by and within natural systems.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
I assume because nearly all the works of man are aiming to _control and
suppress_ nature. Instead of the natural untidy beauty of an ancient forest,
or wild meadow, with random animal and human tracks through it, we pave,
concrete and "neaten". Everything tends to a boring concreted monoculture,
with straight lines and walls or fences everywhere, such that even parks are a
poor second to the natural world -- though if I ever find myself in a city
they are a blessed relief even knowing they are the ersatz second best.

It is almost unheard of to work _with_ nature, to produce sustainable,
sympathetic houses and cities that are a part of the natural world. The
nearest we get is an occasional designer rendering of a sustainable city of
the future... A future just about everyone fights hard to ensure never
arrives, and we get the sad, brutal ugliness of the city.

We could have both. Without much difficulty.

~~~
sneak
Is a beaver dam an effort to control and suppress nature, or is it part of
nature itself?

So are the works of man.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Only with a completely new definition of the word.

Oxford: nature [mass noun] The phenomena of the physical world collectively,
including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of
the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations.

Where in nature, outside human creations, can I find an airliner, or even a
fence? A beaver dam involves no human activity so is of nature. By stretching
the definition only a little, one might consider a log cabin and other
buildings that use natural materials to be of nature, or at least sympathetic
-- wood, stone, earth based, but certainly not steel.

Once you distance yourself via fossil fuel, tools, rules of physics or
chemistry and highly complex industrial manufacturing processes the claim
becomes absurd. A 3d printer, airliner, drug production or an atomic clock
cannot be part of nature -- they exist only through the confluence of man and
fossil fuel.

------
tzs
> Roberts asked him whether there was a bridge we could cross further on. He
> shook his head and courteously informed us, in a Devonshire accent as soft
> and mulchy as the ground beneath our feet, that we were on land privately
> owned by one of his neighbours, and that the more densely forested territory
> across the river was private, too, and that we technically required a permit
> to walk this trail

Wouldn't this be covered by the right to roam [1] [2]? What he intended to do
once he found a good spot might count as camping, which isn't covered, but
just walking there seems like it would be covered.

[1] [https://www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-access-land/use-your-
ri...](https://www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-access-land/use-your-right-to-
roam)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam)

~~~
jnye131
Dartmoor national park has its own bylaws regarding camping. It’s fine for up
to 48hours. I’m guessing other bylaws for private property- and of course the
MOD land.

------
SeekingMeaning
Interesting article. I thought this was a really good metaphor:

> ... my own childhood, the lost civilisation on which my adult self now
> stood.

------
tasuki
It seems to me the author paid someone to... not sit with him in the forest
but generally hang around nearby? To my Eastern European eyes, this looks
super weird.

If you want to spend a day alone in the forest, why not just go? Do you need
the "Way of Nature UK" organization to support you in doing that?

------
isodude
Boredom for me is to be in a place where nothing can be changed, everything
has its place. We allow a lot of customization both at work and home and I
find that extremely satisfying to keep my mind "free". I mean you could be
bored because you don't have any possibilites and be bored because you're
tired of being creative where the first is bad and the second good.

Time moves past me and I don't have control so I tend to have a lot of
discussion or random thoughts about stuff that I see, which annoy the living
soul out of some other people. I think that if we let control over time go a
bit more we would also gain a bit more control over the relationship with
time. Your milage might vary.

------
Chrupiter
This article reminded me of an intriguing experiment my Music teacher proposed
to me and my classmates. He made us listen to some classical music and then he
asked us to express what mental images popped in our mind. I realized that we
(14yo students) were lacking creativity. Our teacher said that when he
proposed the same experiment to children they were much more creative (which
is obvious to me now). By the way, this was a really nice read while listening
to Kid A.

------
Dylan16807
It sounds like a nice experience. But:

> My life seemed to be getting busier, faster: I felt constantly short of time

I can't seem to find any mention whatsoever about whether this changed...
hmm...

------
unusximmortalis
If you liked this experience then try the cave experience: you retriet into a
100% dark room (with a toilet attached) with only water and some fruits (a few
per each day) for 3-5 days. No devices no toys nothing that can keep you busy.
Just you your inner self the dark and the air you breave.

------
mongol
Not bringing food, staying within a circle of 10 m diameter for 24 hours... I
think I can see the point but it seems like he could have reset his clock
while not taking it that "extreme". I enjoy nature, but prefer to walk in it,
and take it in, explore.

~~~
nlh
I think the author’s point is that the “extreme” is required, at least for
him, in order to truly indulge in the escape. A walk/exploration would be too
much of a connection to normal life.

But to each his or her own!

------
foreigner
I LOLed at "I sat there at the edge of my little circle on the riverbank and
binge-watched the river." Such a lovely juxtaposition.

------
hcarvalhoalves
Spending 24h in the woods, AKA “what used to be normal life”.

------
imvetri
25,000 neurons with 20,000,000 connections.

How much does human brain contain?

~~~
pfd1986
~1-10 billion neurons.

