Last weekend I went on an adventure with a friend on a short break to the Rainbow River in Dannellon. There are plenty of clumsy kayaks, sultry morning Javanese, birds and otters. The group has discouraged the use of telephones, a misguided outlook for 2025.
I hadn’t gone to a cold turkey from the phone, but I was kept logged in from the news and social media for almost three days. That’s… the equivalent of winning an Olympic bronze medal for Poodle Clipping, which I don’t know about. Not the deepest achievement, but nothing! (By the way, the Olympics poodle clipping was pretty much real, check it out.)
As a spring trip was prepared in Tampa Bay, it made me think that a little shaking on the Cypress tree. All people, but our people in particular, tend to be set in imaginary scream matches while sleeping, and are suitable to extract themselves from digital overexposure and plug into the simplicity of nature. Not only is the country likely to be heading for a recession, but we must practice stretching cheddar blocks in remote housing.
I don’t intend to be like, “Life is short, I’ll travel!” Not everyone can afford to go hiking in French wine country. In particular, there are $10 eggs for your budget. They also cannot ignore the news forever or opt out of civic actions. The same outdoor spaces that heal us are constantly at risk due to climate change, deforestation, and unidentified development.
But here in Florida, regulating the nervous system can be a more modest feat. We are blessed with spectacular wild lands. Some of these resources have recently been saved from a transformation into a pickleball court. Gaining perspective may seem like sitting in one of those parks and considering squirrels. Or you stare at the bay in your mouth, you know the thing. Or, flop in your driveway and get lost in the clouds without Googleing “Chemtrails Conspiracy.”
Certainly, unplugging it requires incredible effort. I testified as someone who tried to meditate along the Rainbow River for 15 minutes, and instead composed a short story in which a woman meditating instead was torn off the dock by a greedy crocodile. Come straight to the nearby theater: “Dharma and Legs.”
But a few days after I woke up to nature in the sun, saying that I didn’t read anything like “The Trump Administration is the Forest, the Creatures of the Forest” before my feet touched the floor, I remember why rest is important. Our conversation as a society becomes more productive, authentic, and reasonably, quite a bit when we can rest. When you’re not thinking about the internet sound bits, when dopamine isn’t blowing up like wap wap wap. People in all aspects of the aisle need to touch the grass, as young people say.
Because it’s quietly there in the crystal – hey, is it Aninga? – Focus on what is worth calming. Dense political issues become practical and realistic.
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Who should sit on the state’s top wildlife board, developer, or scientist? Should experts tasked with protecting beaches and species be randomly fired? Who plots the golf course on preserved land in quiet corners? Why are oil tankers allowed to encounter rare and endangered whales? Why did the federal government stop the tree planting program in Tampa? Shouldn’t the government ensure that these natural gifts are not paved, looted, looted and polluted? Isn’t it Aninga? no? Doesn’t it look like one? Around the neck? I understand, yes, shh. Time to be quiet.
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