My favorite aspect of nature: The un-mediated experience. Nature does not exist for you to interact with. This is not to say nature does not interact with you, but it is not there FOR you to interact with. It doesn't shut itself into sleep mode after 15minutes of neglect. While we spend our lives surrounded by devices that cater to our every need and whim, plugged into screens built soley to entertain, inform and enslave us, there is a whole world out there simply existing, with us or without us.

Nature does not care if the weather report called for clear skys, if there is rain up there, it will rain. I love the outdoors because I become the reactor, not the actor. You have to deal with what you get, you have to make due with what you have brought with you. You have to be self sufficient. You have to adapt to the environment, not the other way around. If our civilization was based out doors, this would be called evolution.

I love the smells. I love the dangers. I love catching a glimpse of a bobcat or a herd of baby deer. I love the silence, the unmediated stillness.

I go backpacking, I hike, I catch newts, I pretend to fish. I do these things to find the world that has existed since long before I was alive, and god willing will continue to do so after I have gone.

Small lizards are unaware that the warm dry cave they have crawled into is your shoe. I love them for it.