Many of us like to moan about the state. The government, politicians, the ‘powers that be’, whatever you like to call it.

It’s controlling, it’s overbearing, it’s unaccountable, it’s ineffective, it’s inefficient, it’s just plain coercive. 

Stop telling me what to do

Many of us – especially of a leftie liberal bent – get misty eyed about quotes from the last of the nomadic tribes and how they spoke of contempt for the settled subsistence farmer.

Nothing would induce them to sacrifice their freedom of agency for the humiliating subordination of settled life with its overlords, taxes and rules.

But us moderns – in our wisdom – often like to think that they didn’t know the huge benefits of civilization that we now enjoy and often take for granted.

We’re living the dream

Given we have it so good, it’s amazing how much we moan. And it’s even more amazing how much time we spend trying to pretend ourselves out of civilization – just for a moment.

Gone fishing? Hiking in the wilderness? Camping when you’ve got a perfectly good house to sleep in? Sailing for no apparent reason? Holidaying ‘off the beaten track’?

It’s incredible the lengths we go to to get off grid, to imagine ourselves a little freer than we really are, to pretend for a moment that maybe we can go where we please and do as we wish without consequence or censor. 

If civilization is so much better, why do we spend so much of our leisure time – yes, that time we are allotted where we can do what we feel like doing – turning our back on civilization? 

Its discontents

Turns out there’s a lot to civilization that really annoys us. Timetables, commutes, rules, alarm clocks, overcrowding, garbage, pollution, offices, queues, ultra-processed food, mortgages. Whisper it, other people?

But the coercive state offers us something else beyond all the bread and circuses. Something deeply compelling to our animal spirit. Freedom from pain. 

Ask your most strident anti-establishment off-gridder this: if you get ill, not a snuffle, but a really bad illness, what do you want to do? Fend for yourself? Or perhaps, one step up, ask your tribe to fetch the nearest shaman? Or would you like modern medical care at that point? 

Still want freedom?

A huge part of regaining your freedom, of freeing yourself from subordination to the state, of truly getting off grid, is the process of accepting pain. That doesn’t come easy. 

Our nomadic ancestors knew this as a fact of life. Freedom of agency also meant the freedom to live with a lot of pain at times. Physical pain. But perhaps they suffered less emotional or psychological pain than settled man? Who knows?

That is the elusive question that haunts every camper, every Sunday sailor, every rambler, everyone who’s gone fishing, even if they don’t know it. Did I lose something out there? 

Still think you’re into living on the wild side? What about when nature is annoying?