“Spinning or casting?”

“What’s the difference?” I replied.

“What do you think about these lures? Should I get this spray for us? They say it’s supposed to attract larger ones.”

“Do you know what we actually need from here?”

“No.”

I’ve heard many say that there are moments in life that really make you aware of just exactly where you are. I had always thought that fabled moments like that are supposed to be more grandiose than standing in a Bass Pro Shop on a Thursday evening. Nevertheless, there I was, standing in the middle of the aisle with my dad (both of us clearly out of our depths) scrambling to get any piece of fishing gear that looked like it would be useful or that we could vaguely remember seeing in any TikTok videos we had shared with each other on the topic.

However, while he was dead focused on the myriad of aquatic paraphernalia laid out in front of us, all of my attention was centered on him. Why had this man, who spent his days either working all around computers or in the bustling cities of Southern California, all of a sudden gained such an interest in something as alien to him as fishing?

The more I thought about it, the more I began to notice it wasn’t just him. All around me, more and more people seemed to be turning away from the noise of modern life, drawn instead to slower rhythms, quieter spaces, and moments of contact with the natural world. I started wondering: what’s behind this pull? Why, after generations of racing toward “progress” and the amenities it’s brought with it, do we feel the need to turn back? Why turn back to the forests? Why turn back to the mountains? Why make a return to the natural world?

As time passed, my dad and I went on several trips to the various lakes and prime coastal waters of California. During this time, I always kept my questions in the back of my mind and slowly, I began to realize that what drew my dad into fishing wasn’t just filling out a new hobby, but the feeling it gave him. With him, I had experienced the stillness of the water, the early morning light, and the patience the sport required. It was in stark contrast to the noise and pace of his daily life. And he wasn’t alone. Across research and lived experience, there seems to be a growing recognition that nature actually offers something many of us have been missing, not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically.

Studies into the psychological effects of nature have shown how short periods of immersion in nature can foster feelings of awe, contentment and a sort of, “mental restoration.”1 One such research study was conducted by scientists Matthew T. Ballew and Allen M. Omoto, where they compared individuals who spent just fifteen minutes in a natural setting with those who remained in an artificial, “built” environment, and the difference was remarkable.2 Those surrounded by nature reported a greater sense of well-being and emotional calm.3 What strikes me is how little time it took for participants to feel this sentiment. Achieving the feeling didn’t require some grand, week-long retreat; it offered peace in minutes. This suggests something fundamental, even primal, about our connection to the natural world. Is this rapid, “mental restoration,” gained because it’s how we are meant to be?

In another light, could this idea be tied to our current culture? American author, Richard Louv, coined the term, “nature-deficit disorder,” which describes the cognitive, emotional and physical consequences of being alienated from the natural world.4 It’s his sentiment that Columbia Climate School student Renee Cho shares when she states how higher rates of stress, obesity, ADHD and asthma, are all linked to our increasingly modern lifestyles.5 Now I know it’s no secret that most people are spending less time outdoors, but what was less obvious to me was the real consequences that come with this lifestyle. The further we move away from green spaces, the more we seem to suffer. I was under the impression that being outdoors was just for enjoyment, but with all these ailments that come with being away from it for too long, is there something within us that needs it?

A uniquely modern angle on this issue is the growing and urgent threat of environmental collapse. Our emotional distance from the natural world, combined with this threat, gave rise to what psychiatrist Craigan Usher calls, “eco-anxiety.”6 Especially among younger generations, there is a growing sense of dread about the future of our planet.7 Climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity. In years past people didn’t think too deeply about these issues, but now they’re real, they’re personal.8 These issues shape how we think about having children, where we live, and even how we envision our own futures.9 Usher writes that many young people feel overwhelmed by the environmental damage they’ve inherited and how they feel powerless to fix it.10 And what has this resulted in? A kind of existential unease that I’d be lying in saying that I haven’t felt the effects of as well. It’s a kind of unsettling feeling that, ironically, immersion and building a connection with nature actually seems to calm, even as it also reminds us that we’re on the edge of losing it.

So then, what’s really driving this mass exodus to nature? Is it rooted in fear, a desperate attempt to find clarity in the face of collapse? Or does it stem from a more deep-seated desire to reconnect with something that we’ve forgotten? Maybe it’s both. Maybe we are pulled by two forces at once. The stress and chaos of modern life pushing us out, and the healing, liberating presence of nature drawing us back in.

If nature offers healing and clarity, it’s no surprise that many see it as an escape, an antidote to the discord that modern life has become. But what happens when that escape becomes something more? What happens when nature becomes not just a refuge, but an ideal? A destination not just for a weekend hike, but for the total reinvention of the self?

This is the story at the heart of Jon Krakauer’s, Into the Wild, a book that made me realize that there can be a bleak, sombering, aspect of our desires for a natural connection. The story follows Christopher McCandless, a young man who abandoned his life of privilege to venture across the great North American continent and into the Alaskan wilderness.11 For McCandless, nature wasn’t a temporary break, it was the only place he believed he could live truthfully. He wrote, “I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.”12 His journey didn’t show that he simply wanted to detach from society but to completely reject it. He gave up his money, burned his IDs, and went out in search of purity, solitude, and some kind of deeper truth.13 His journey was driven by a radical rejection of modern life, but also by a longing for something more authentic than what he had known. This ambition ultimately ended in his untimely death, alone in the Alaskan wilds, right where he said he wanted to be.14 We often think of nature as some holy healer, a frontier that we think would welcome us back if we accept it, but here we find a man, so pushed into desperation and in need of an out, that he neglected the truth that nature needs not to be in tune with us as we do with it, and for that he paid with his life.

McCandless’ quest reminds me of another figure who turned to the wilderness in search of meaning, though under very different circumstances, John Muir. In My First Summer in the Sierra, Muir documents his time wandering the mountains of California, reflecting on the harmony and spirituality he found in the natural world.15 He made assertions such as, “Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life,” and, “no wonder the hills and groves were God’s first temples.”16 His relationship to nature showed an understanding that to walk among trees and mountains was to be in the presence of something sacred. His writings are filled with wonder and gratitude. He didn’t reject civilization so much as he found something in nature that civilization couldn’t give him: stillness, humility, and a sense of belonging to something far greater than himself. That type of reverence Muir expressed for the natural world is something I don’t think many understand the cruciality of. The natural world doesn’t owe us anything, yet we take from it, destroy it, plunder it, and have the ego to separate ourselves from it. If it were any other kind of relationship, I believe that we would be downright ashamed by our realization that we needed to maintain a connection to it. In contrast to McCandless, Muir felt nature holds a divinity.

Both Muir and McCandless were transformed by their experiences in nature, but in differing ways. Muir saw nature as a teacher, while McCandless saw it as a means of escape from the artificiality of society. One sought understanding, the other sought freedom. Yet, they both turned to the wild for answers, and in many ways, both achieved what they had desired.

Their stories made me think about what I desire from nature, what did my dad desire? Was he looking for an escape? Or was he just looking to pause for a while, take a breath, and understand the world he was put into? Do any of us truly want to get away from our modern lives, or do we just want to rekindle what those before us had in generations past?

But why do we even need to look for an escape? We live in a time where technologies that would have been akin to magic only a few centuries ago are commonplace in the first world. Those who live the busy, work-filled life get to enjoy all the fruits of modern progress. What about the idea of progress suddenly made us shudder? For generations, society has been driven by the idea of progress. More technology, more infrastructure, more convenience. More, more, more, more. So why do we want less? From this I started to question what our idea of “progress” has really done to us. Has it brought us closer to the kind of lives we actually want to live? Or has it pushed us into something louder, more crowded, more alienating?

Jeremy Caradonna, a professor of history at the University of Alberta, challenges the traditional belief that our idea of modernization has been virtuous.17 He argues that while industrialization brought material comfort to some, it also caused a lot of harm for others. Our communities, ecosystems and sense of self have all taken hits as we’ve “modernized.”18 The endless pursuit of growth, he suggests, often comes at the expense of sustainability and connection.19 In questioning the morality of this progress, I think Caradonna is opening up a space to think critically about the world we’ve built. If we’re so advanced, why are so many of us exhausted, anxious and disconnected?

This sense of disillusionment isn’t new. Far from it. Art from nearly a century ago sought to capture this feeling. Reginald Marsh’s 1929 drawing, I tell you, Gus, this town ain’t what it used to be, captured the sense of chaos and decay that urban life brought during a time when industrialization was reshaping American cities.20 The image of two men observing a gritty, overrun New York street shows both a sense of nostalgia for and exhaustion with what life in the city had become. It paints the realization that what was once promised as progress has, in some ways, degraded human experience. Cities that were meant to represent opportunity and modern living had begun to feel like machines that grinded people down. When I look at Marsh’s drawing and read Caradonna’s critique, I start to understand the appeal of nature not just as a place of peace, but as a counterpoint to the world we’ve created. Nature doesn’t move at the speed of profit. It doesn’t buzz, beep or demand constant attention. For many, it offers a vision of life that feels real, or at least, more real than the one defined by highways, cubicles and hours on Tiktok.

A reshaped idea of progress may be a good thing. Who said that it needed to be defined by separation from the natural? Are we not free to determine our own meaning for progress? I had always thought that one of the oddest things about humanity is how we think about freedom. We hear time and time again of stories and instances where people weren’t free to live their lives both in literal terms and more figuratively. But what I always think about is what is keeping them captive? The actions of other humans. The burden of work, of responsibility, of forced responsibility, of living to fit into an idealized version of what you should be, all ideas and constructs created and influenced by others. So if the actions of some parts of humanity are what push down the other, what happens when something else steps into the ring? What happens when everyone is pushed down to similar levels?

I don’t think a more representative example of this exists than the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time in most of our lives, the world stopped. Everyone was locked indoors, removed from daily commutes and crowded spaces, surrounded instead by the hum of our appliances and the buzz of uncertainty. As weeks turned to months, our own homes, places that in any other case should bring us comfort, now felt claustrophobic. With what was supposed to be our refuge now creating a sense of unease, people again looked for answers in the natural world.

Mitra L. Nikoo, Cerren Richards and Amanda E. Bates discussed in their journal article about how quickly people went back to nature during the pandemic.21 They say that, “people ‘pulsed back’ to nature only one month after returning to shopping for necessities, whereas the return to luxuries lagged far behind.”22 Their article reminded me of the videos I saw of people who had never even camped before suddenly pitching tents, taking hikes, or simply spending time in their backyards. I mean even I vividly remember wanting to get outside. With the wilds of California surrounding me, how couldn’t I? It felt like they were almost calling out to me. My sentiment wasn’t limited to one region though, it was global.23 It was clear to me that people were craving air, craving space, craving freedom. They were looking for something to ease the stress, loneliness and uncertainty that had settled into our lives.

What I found most compelling about this time was the rise of the argument that access to nature should be treated not as a luxury, but as a basic human right and need.24 Same as how most of us stand for food and shelter, people have come to realize that we rely on nature for our emotional and psychological survival. As the pandemic lightened, we didn’t rush back to malls or amusement parks, we rushed back to rivers and trails. I believe that this says something. I believe it says that deep down, we know what we need to feel free.

The pandemic showed that disconnection from nature can be deeply damaging, but also, that reconnection is possible, even in times of crisis. It raised the question, why wait for catastrophe to remember what nourishes us?

In light of the pandemic, I started noticing that for many people within my generation, the desire to reconnect with the natural world isn’t just about a sense of peace or nostalgia. It’s about urgency. It’s about survival. It’s about hope. It’s about trying to find some sense of control in a future that feels increasingly unstable.

I spoke earlier of how Craigan Usher introduced me to the idea of “eco-anxiety,” but following the unease that the pandemic brought on, I wanted to really loop it into how dread can influence us to slip back into nature. Our newfound consciousness about our environment has become more than just a concern, it’s a real psychological weight.25 In exploring the sentiments people of my generation feel about the future I’ve seen that this weight comes in many forms. It’s waking up with dread about rising sea levels. It’s wondering whether bringing children into the world is ethical. It’s feeling powerless in the face of climate collapse while being told it’s our generation’s responsibility to fix it. Usher’s recognition of this responsibility being put onto young people made me feel a sense of being seen. A validation of a sentiment that I have wondered and felt uncertainty about. He treats these feelings seriously, as signs that something is profoundly wrong, both with our environment and the systems we live in.

This is where I have found the connection to nature to be more than superficial. For many young people, returning to nature is not just a retreat, it’s a kind of resistance. It’s a way of saying, “I’m tired of being scared, I want to remember that I am a part of something larger, something older, something alive.”

I find that Usher’s sentiment can also be tied back to Caradonna’s critique of industrial progress. If the previous generations were sold a version of modernity that centered on growth and productivity, many today are choosing to question that path entirely. They’re looking at what that version of progress has done to the Earth, to our communities, to our sense of meaning, and deciding to shift course in a new direction. Reconnecting with nature, then, becomes not just restorative, but transformative. It becomes a way of envisioning a different future, one where we might live more sustainably, more gently, more in tune with the world that holds us.

However, I believe that the question remains. Will this longing translate into real action? Can the desire to reconnect become something more than individual retreats into nature, something systemic, something cultural, something that reshapes how we build, live and relate to our own planet? Therein lies one of the greatest challenges of today. It’s one thing for us to feel the pull back to nature because of our concerns and emotions, but where it ultimately puts us ten, fifty, or even a hundred years down the line is entirely up to what we decide to sustain.

I still think about that evening in the fishing aisle with my dad. Yes, because I needed a jumping off point for this essay, but also because I’m three thousand miles from home, because I am now dropped in the middle of a major city rather than maintaining the comfortable distance that I am used to, because I’m unfamiliar with my surroundings and deeply uncertain for what my own future holds. At the time, it felt so random, just me and my dad looking for a new hobby. But now, after reflecting on everything that moment opened up for me, it feels more like a quiet kind of awakening. Something in him, maybe in both of us, was searching.

As I’ve explored this question, why people today feel the need to return to nature, I’ve come to see that the answer isn’t simple or singular. Sometimes it’s psychological, a need for peace and restoration in a world that never stops moving. Sometimes it’s emotional, a deep desire to feel part of something larger and more meaningful. Sometimes it’s a reaction, a rejection to the noise, pressure and artificiality that seems to define modern life. Sometimes, it’s an act of hope, a belief that maybe, by returning to nature, we can discover a different way of being.

What remains most compelling to me is that the longing for nature is not new, but it feels newly urgent. Whether it’s through awe, anxiety, nostalgia, or necessity, people are realizing that something essential is missing, and they’re looking for it in the rivers, the trees, the quiet trails that lie just outside their hometowns. Maybe they’re not just escaping the world that is our present but just trying to remember it as it was in our past.

I don’t know if there’s a final answer to why we search for answers in nature, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe just asking the question, and following where it leads, is part of what it means to be in search of stillness.

Bibliography

Notes

1. Matthew T. Ballew and Allen M. Omoto, “Absorption: How Nature Experiences Promote Awe and Other Positive Emotions,” Ecopsychology 10, no. 1 (March 2018): 1-71, https://doi.org/10.1089/eco.2017.0044.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Richard Louv, “Richard Louv,” Hop Studios, 2016, https://richardlouv.com.

5. Renee Cho, “Why We Must Reconnect With Nature,” State of the Planet News from the Columbia Climate School, 2011, https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2011/05/26/why-we-must-reconnect-with-nature/.

6. Craigan Usher, “Eco-Anxiety,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 61., No 2. (2022): 341-342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2021.11.020.

7. Ibid. 342.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (United States: Villard, 1996).

12. Ibid 7. This quote was spoken by Christopher McCandless as written down in his memoir found after he had passed away.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911).

16. Ibid. 196.

17. Jeremy Caradonna, “Is ‘Progress’ Good for Humanity? Rethinking the narrative of economic development, with sustainability in mind,” The Atlantic, September 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/09/the-industrial-revolution-and-its-discontents/379781/.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Reginald Marsh, I tell you, Gus, this town ain’t what it used to be, 1929, crayon and ink with graphite, United States of America, https://www.loc.gov/item/2005694408/.

21. Mitra L. Nikoo, Cerren Richards, and Amanda E. Bates, “Rapid worldwide return to nature after lockdown as a motivator for conservation and sustainable action,” Biological Conservation 292, (2024): 110517, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110517.

22. Ibid. 3.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Craigan Usher, “Eco-Anxiety,” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 61., No 2. (2022): 341-342. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2021.11.020.