“Whaaaaat?!?!?”
Yep, it’s true, I’m going there. But just to make sure this is known from the start, I’m not saying that it is wrong to be comfortable… I mean there are some occasions when comfort is a good thing. I like sleeping comfortably myself, and sometimes it just gets so unbelievably hot or cold outside that it is nice to have the comfort of central air. Kitchens are great. Couches are fun to sit on. Comfort really can be a pretty neat thing, but it has been defended and just irresponsibly folded into for much too long, so I think it’s time we consider the other side.
Anyone who has even momentarily glanced at some social media feed of a fitness freak knows the saying, “no pain, no gain.” Most of the time we may scoff at this and inwardly mock the individual for being way too much of a gym rat, but today let’s give this idea further consideration.
The earth—despite being beautiful, perfectly capable of providing for all our needs, and being covered with some beautiful lush areas—is something of a refiner’s fire. If we are to believe any assumptions of Darwinian evolution, that refining fire helps to strengthen and refine species as new developments emerge in genetics. But that is on a time scale that is hardly fathomable by the human psyche. The question then is: can the earth bring a fire of refinement into a single human’s life? More importantly, is the refining fire based in comfort or discomfort?
To first answer these question I would encourage the reader to check out pictures on Instagram of hikers. You’ll see that they all seem to be rather fit individuals, and if the body shape is unconvincing, then the height of the summit from which the picture is taken can speak for itself. Still, fitness is just a single part of being refined. If the earth really does provide a refining fire for the human, then it will be seen physically, mentally, and spiritually.
Vlad and Alex observing the hoodoos at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. That's Vlad who is my fellow barefoot hiker.
Let’s continue with the physical for a while. To do this I would like to share my experience of taking my relationship with the earth (and my willingness to forgo comfort) to another level. I’m speaking of the five months during which I hiked at least a couple miles barefoot nearly every single day. This is clearly not something that most people would get the chance to do during day to day lives, and I only had the opportunity because of the road trip that I took with two of the other founders of NaturalNatures—Vlad and Alex.
I honestly don’t know what it was that possessed us to initially try out hiking barefoot. We were going through a bit of a masochistic stint on the road trip at the time (we had started finding all different insects to get stung by a month earlier). At the same time it meant something more as well. For me it was somewhat tied to the fact that my hiking shoes were falling to pieces and I was running out of money to find a better pair. I had also always wanted to feel the earth more keenly while hiking for several years. These variables all combined to inspire me to engage in an experience I would not trade for the world.
Barefoot hiking is painful, at least when starting. It is not comfortable to begin with, but rather an exercise in will power over pain. From this pain comes rewards. The feet begin to callus, new muscles grow, and the body learns how the whole human locomotion is supposed to work in the first place. Many people may have heard that “heel to toe” is the way we should walk, but when you actually use your body in its natural way you realize that it is all in the ball of the foot. In fact, you try not to ever let the heel touch the ground. This is because the foot is designed like a spring, the arch is supposed to be there to help convert energy of impact into energy of forward motion. With a shoe on it is difficult to realize how beneficial the use of the arch can be, but take of the shoes and you feel your body bounce from impact to impact as long as you land with the balls of your feet first.
There are more discoveries that I made with barefoot hiking. My steps become quieter and were even gentler to the earth on which they landed. It takes a lot more attention, because you must always be watching where your feet are going. Catching a toe on a rock while barefoot doesn’t just produce a small stumble; rather, the entire toe gets beat up. So you take more calculated steps, and at the same time trust more areas for footing (you see, when you are barefoot you can literally grab the ground with your toes). The change in your surroundings is felt as well as seen, as textures change depending on the environment. It is not because barefoot hiking is comfortable that you receive these rewards, but because it is uncomfortable.
Some of my other experiences with discomfort yielding results come from working as a mover and lifting heavy weights. These intense activities will almost always cause very slight fractures in bone structure—I most likely got plenty of those in the bones of my feet while barefoot hiking as well—these miniscule fractures tell the body that more dense bone tissue is needed in the area, and so the body deposits larger amounts of calcium leading to stronger bones. Part of me believes that it is due to the amount of stress that I have put my body over the years that kept my leg from breaking when my driver’s side door was impacted at around 50 miles per hour by a truck.
Then again maybe it isn't as bad I felt it was at the time.
Living by and through nature offers other discomforts. If one lives off the land, then there are natural periods of less abundance when it comes to food, which puts the body through obligatory fasts. Turns out that fasting provides all sorts of health benefits, including detoxing the system and improving one’s mood. Minor starvation, or the lack of sustenance, has also been shown to be correlated to greater brain activity. It is by no means comfortable, but it provides the struggle through which both body and mind can grow.
Having no option but to live directly in nature exposes a person to extremes in temperatures that can oftentimes be uncomfortable, but exposure to these intense climates helps the body learn how to better regulate its core temperature. This natural ability of the body has pushed some (most notably Wim Hof) to learn and discover ways in which the mind and the spirit can take control of the body even further. Some monks and yogis have shown the ability to slow their heart rate at will. But there is no reason to discover or attempt these things when living a life of comfort.
The earth serves as a crucible for growth, but that growth can only come after discomfort. Unfortunately, our species has become enamored with comfort. Comfort is a large part of what fuels the consumer lifestyle. It is comfortable to have voice controlled electronics so one doesn’t even have to walk up to the electronics to operate them. It is comfortable to have a large house so that a person hardly ever has need to leave it and can fill it with all kinds of comfortable distractions. It is comfortable to recline in an electric recliner. It is comfortable to live in a house with central air. It is comfortable to wear sneakers with gel insoles. But think of the people who have all of these comforts and relax into these comforts on day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute bases. This lifestyle is one that causes the atrophy of the human body, the human mind, and (arguably) the human spirit.
Comfort needs no space for understanding and working together. Comfort does not need to love others different from the self to feel at ease. Comfort corrupts us, and has deeply corrupted our society. The exciting thing is that it is easy to start introducing discomfort into our lives. Go meet and talk to people with differing opinions, go on a long hike, take a walk in the winter with one less layer than usual. It could even be as easy as going outside on a blistering hot summer day, or just turning off the air conditioning for a couple hours.
Our goals of creating a roughnecking tour group and a commune farm are intricately connected with discomfort. Roughnecking is to go without hotels and indoor sleeping options while hiking several miles each day. A commune farm that is entirely self-sustaining might have a shortage of a crop and cause the need for rationing. Plus living with a large group of people always pushes one outside of his/her comfort zone. The thing is that this discomfort will breed a deeper comfort than many of us get to realize with the comfortable ways we live life. This is the comfort of knowing that the farm is not hurting the earth, and both the tours and farm will bring people closer together and bring them more in touch with the energy of the earth, which is just an extension of the energy inside of all of us.
So yeah, the desire for comfort has led to some great inventions that can be lots of fun, but if we did not care about those bits of comfort, where else could we have applied that ingenuity and energy? Just some food for thought. If you have any ideas as to what comfort means to you and how I’m completely off base, or if you have some great fantasy of where we could be if we cared less about comfort, please take a moment to comment below.
We Love you all! Thanks for taking the time out of your day to ponder with us.