I kind of love it when truth knocks you down face first into the sand and giggles at you. I also kind of like the moment you get to stand up with dirt all over your cheeks and laugh along with the truth.

 I’m not keeping it a secret that my life’s gone to heck (‘darn it all, darn it all to heck’) recently. And because Google keeps tabs on literally everything we think these days, my Facebook feed bombards me each time I get brave enough to peek at it, with ‘inspirational messages.’

Ah. Inspirational messages.

Lots of these ‘inspirational messages’ tell me that nature has all the answers; that we find ourselves in nature. Hooray! Isn’t it great that my ‘true soul lies up a mountain somewhere’ or to cure this bout of depression I can ‘just listen to the leaves blowing in the wind because they carry my destiny in their song’ or I’ll understand life, the universe and everything soon because ‘the red soil will tell me its stories if I share my spirit’ and blah and blah and blah. It’s all crap. Every word. Sorry. Except the end result; the part about how we find ourselves in nature.

So why do we have to use all kinds of pseudo-spiritual nonsense to get to the truth?  I find myself in nature. Literally. Every day. I’m a safari guide.

I want to share those truths I believe in. Truths that get bigger, bolder and more bad-ass every day. I’m madly in love with those truths.

Truth: Nature is totally indifferent to our suffering. My suffering. This suffering. And that’s okay. I feel like I should be giving a thumbs up here. Just because it doesn’t care doesn’t mean nature can’t make things better. It totally can. If you do all the work yourself…

  
Here’s another truth. Nature is where we’re supposed to be. It isn’t meant to be a novelty or somewhere we get to visit occasionally when we get a free afternoon or a place we pay to see on a safari. It’s our natural state. It’s where we’d all be anyway if this crazy human accident never happened.

Why does my heart jolt when I find myself eye to eye with an elephant? Because it’s supposed to. Me and him? We go back a few million years. ‘We got history, y’all.’ We’ve grown up and evolved here, in Africa. Together. It’s that simple. Love.

It’s true that when I walk in the bush, I’m at my most authentic, because it’s where this fleeting, temporary organism that is ‘me,’ should be. It’s where my genes (some I love, some not so much) have been programmed over hundreds of thousands of years to survive, thrive and be awesome. Right here. Even if I sometimes struggle to walk up hills without running out of breath and get all teary when I stand on a sharp rock. Doesn’t matter. It’s out here that I… ugh… wait for it… ‘find myself.’ Truth.

You love being on safari? Yes! Going out on a bush walk? Absolutely! It’s because out here, your ancient ‘self’ is experiencing that rare moment when it gets to remember who you are and how you got to be here. Your body is reveling in what it’s supposed to be.

BE WILD.

BE SO VERY, VERY WILD.

Hoofnote: Anyway, everyone knows that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42.