September 2019 - The Idea of Wilderness

The idea of wilderness needs no defence, it only needs defenders.

Edward Abbey

Like many before him and no doubt after, Edward Abbey spent a lot of time alone in the wilderness. After all, it’s been the default getaway destination for pretty much every prophet there ever was. Has to be a reason.

If you are going to come up with some big thoughts the wilderness is the place to do it. No question.

In fact, if you are coming up with big thoughts and you haven’t spent some quality time in the wilderness, literally or figuratively, they just won’t have the same ring to them.

If this is the case, and wilderness is important, why the hell is the narrative always about development?

If you think that digging a diamond out the ground, chopping down some trees or scratching around for some iron is important now, just imagine in the future how much people will pay to see a sky with no aircraft in it, a horizon with no human structures and to breathe clean air.

The custodians of the last wilderness will be the richest nations on the planet.

I’m a cynic, but sometimes I’m appalled at the insidious narrative that a state of non-development is somehow bad.

As Abbey also said, “growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

There’s a Sanlam advert. The ‘See this spot’ ad in which a little girl intones semi-religiously:

“See this spot? It’s easy to think it’s ordinary. Easy to underestimate. Easy to walk right past. Or is it? You could make something here. Create something here…"

I don’t have a problem with the sentiment - I just have a BIG problem with the spot she’s chosen. It’s one of the most beautiful places on the planet. How is it easy to think it’s ordinary?

Ordinary is your backyard or the building you work in. It’s not this sublime landscape that inspires humanity to dream, to think, to transcend. I imagine that’s why it’s featured in so many adverts!

To ‘make something’ in that spot is beyond a desecration, it’s a vomit-inducing indictment of our civilisation and way of life.

Go and make something in your backyard instead.

When we forget what wilderness looks like, what it was, how it made us feel, then all that is left is the incarceration of the mind, body and spirit.

Let’s defend our wilderness.

The Idea of Wilderness