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Insight
Me,
Myself
and I
Twenty-four hours in nature , alone. No telephone , no book ,
no food. Journalist Eva Loesberg was curious what impact
it would have on her and embraced the adventure.
It’s July 5. I set down my heavy backpack between
two trees by a small lake—or, more accurately, a large
pond—somewhere in the middle of a forest. This is my
spot for the coming 24 hours. Henrik, the supervisor of
this nature quest, saves the GPS coordinates so that
the ranger can find me in case of an emergency (a
thunderstorm or a flash flood) and then he leaves. I am
on my own now. I look at the green water in the pond.
For weeks, I have been fantasizing about this moment.
How would I feel, with all those empty hours ahead
of me? Sitting still, something I—to my husband’s
annoyance—never do. There is always a plan to be
made, some weeding to do, someone to email, a son
who wants to play a game or a daughter who wants to
learn to ride a bike. When I try to relax anyway, I read a
book or I ‘enjoy a run’. Maybe that’s what appealed to
me about the nature quest: how radically different it
will be for me, because I’m unable to find peace on my
own surrounded by all those distractions. Here, there’s
just me and nature. No food, no Netflix, no WhatsApp,
no magazines. I love the idea. And I’m petrified. Will I
be able to stand the silence, the boredom? And how
will the wild animals react?
Rijk Smitskamp, the founder of this nature quest, was
far from reassuring during the introduction meeting.
“The whole point is to be confronted with your fears to
overcome them,” he said. “An outdoors nature quest is
meant to push you to the edges of your comfort zone.
It might be cold, it might rain, there may be animals,
you might not sleep. But what you then take back with
you into your daily life is the sense that you have
overcome all of this. You have yourself and that’s all
you need. You can feel confident that you’ll make the
right choices.”IMPROVISED TENT
The concept of this nature quest is based on the
ancient rites of passage of native people who sent their
sons into the jungle for a few days, to return as men
after a fight with a snake, or vision of an ancestor.
“Even now—or especially now—in a world where
we are constantly running from one commitment to
another and do so much ‘because we have to’, nature
can be a great teacher,” Rijk said. “We have so many
distractions, so much to process, that we often
don’t know who we are anymore.” >