Previously, I discussed where we come from. To me, the next fundamental question about self-hood is “what are we made of?”. This question is not one we typically ask about ourselves, but it is an enlightening query; because what we are, like most things about ourselves, is not something we can choose.
Muscle and bone, tendon and tissue, fat and skin, faces and hands and shapes: we are first and foremost bodily beings. Yet, because of the advancements of civilization and the success of our ingenuity, we have little connection between our self identity and our bodily being. We have ironed out many of the experiences that for millennia have placed human consciousness squarely in the life of the body, and as a result have become unattached from our physicality and reliance upon nature. We no longer think regularly about how temperatures, rain, sunlight, and soil are the physically sustaining resource that give us life every day. We consume goods and products with little to no consideration or thankfulness for how they came to be and what it costs to make them.
Think about the computer that you are reading this blog post on. Although it might seem about as unnatural as anything could be, it is bound to nature by the very atoms that compose it. The plastics are refined bits of dead micro-organisms that, many years ago, floated upon the ocean soaking in sunlight and CO2, the glass and silicon chips are basically just refined sand, and the metals were at one point in their life buried beneath dirt and stone. We are much the same way. Although we do not think much about it, the difference between our bodies and the rock we stand on is not in substance but in association. In fact, we are very much the Earth, and the Earth is very much us.
Becoming conscious of what it is the we are made of is not as simple as being told, or else I would have stopped typing in the last paragraph. Instead, it is something that must be re-integrated to our consciousness through experiences and habits. My solution to this is backpacking. By venturing out, away from the comforts of civilization, we are forcefully made aware of the fragility of the bodily self, and jarringly placed into the mindset that my self is my body, and my body is a part of nature. This works better if conditions for backpacking are poor and you’re miserable. Cold rain, limited resources, and no google to search if you don’t know how to do something makes it abundantly clear that we are at the mercy of our knowledge, skill, and the whims of mother nature.
You may be thinking to yourself that I sound like a masochistic lunatic, and I might be, but it is not the misery that most times accompanies backpacking that I love. It is the reward you get for successfully relying on yourself. It is the sense of self-sufficiency, not in the sense that you can do it alone and don’t need others to help you, but rather in the sense that your self can survive when reduced to its bodily components. This reward often takes the form of the peaceful tranquility of morning in the woods and a sense that you, along with the flora and fauna around you, have done a good job in surviving the night. This sense of self-awareness that includes nature is not easily described, so I encourage you to go find a hiking buddy and do it yourself.
We are made of nature, and when we die we contribute our bodies back into nature. Nothing of our career, our education, our hobbies, or our achievements go with us into death. We go back into the Earth. Living in this truth allows us to live more honestly as who we are.