Where Is Wildness?

We humans are animals. Mammals. Primates. We are not animals in the wild. We are domesticated. We resemble more the caged animals in a zoo. Look through the bars at the lion, king of beasts, lying around bored, fat. His only interest is when the keeper will toss a slab of meat at his feet for his evening meal. Muscles soft, spirit broken. Where has his wildness gone? Are we like him? Where has our wildness gone?

The dirt beneath our feet is dead, covered over in layers of asphalt and cement. The air we breathe is laden with soot and fumes from burning petroleum. We live in drywall-clad rooms, stacked one on another till they reach the sky. Seated in our cars, we busily rush around from place to place. Or staring straight ahead, we wait impatiently for the light to turn from red to green. Our lives are spent in air-conditioned cubicles, neat apartments, fluorescent-lit offices, serenaded by bland, calming, piped in Musak.

Seated at desks or on comfortable couches, our eyes are focused hour after hour on the bluish light emanating from computers, smartphones, television screens. Our minds are swirling, full to the brim with facts, spreadsheets, numbers. . . abstractions. The world created for us is safe, comfortable, controlled. We like it that way. We don’t want surprises. We try to eliminate the unexpected. Yet the more we control the world in which we live, the more we have need for what is wild and untamed.

Has our wildness gone? Has it disappeared forever? No. It still lives in us. Our hearts quicken at the image of a mustang at full gallop across the plains, a red-tailed hawk circling in flight. This is the kind of freedom and connectedness to our animal bodies we yearn for. We had it back then as young boys when we climbed to the highest branches of the backyard tree and when we raced full speed around the bases. We can touch it now in the frosty morning air, watching the vapor from our breath as we labor up a steep mountain trail. Or wipe the sweat from our brow after an afternoon of digging in the soil.

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For our sanity, we need the wildness that nature provides. We need to cool our overheated brain in icy meandering streams and on windy mountaintops. We need to challenge our bodies, strain our muscles, push our limits. We need to reserve time and take off the starched shirt, remove the tie, wash away the sweet smell of cologne and get dirty and sweaty. Our male bodies need it. Our masculine souls need it.