The Perfect Forest

The St. regis Canoe area is an 18,900-acre portion of the Adirondack park in Upstate new york that is remarkable for a number of reasons.

Imagine a region with more than 58 ponds and lakes, and peaks as high as 2,800 feet, where there are absolutely no motors. 

That's right, you will not hear a motorboat or a vehicle engine in this park.

the 275,000-acre High peaks wildnerness, just to the south of the St. Regis canoe area, is equally impressive. 

It's the second largest wilderness area east of the mississippi (the first is the Everglades).

What's absolutely incredible about these places is that you feel, when you're in them, like you're removed bodily from the speed, urgency and anxiety of the current generation we live in.

There is no wi-fi, so you are not getting incessant updates about news stories or social media alerts on a device in your pocket.

There is no cell reception so you are not getting text-message reminders and updates.

If you bring out that device we've all become too addicted to from your pocket, you're likely using it in what has become a quaint capacity... as a camera.

When you hear a loon call as the sun sets behind a mountain, casting into a lake shimmering with color from its reflection, you can't help but think that somehow this is more in line with how human beings were meant to survive than anything back in society.

Our daily lives have become scrambles for efficiency, productivity,  and entertainment.

We strive at work to pay the bill to watch the show to make the post that gets the like... etc, etc. We stare at small screens becoming increasingly anxious.

Before the advent of the smartphone, if you showed someone a human being staring at a small black handheld device for hours on end, rotating it, tapping it, scanning items with it, and asked the average individual to rate that person's sanity or behavior, most of us would agree their priorities were out of whack.

And one of the great things about parks like the Adirondacks is that, for however briefly, the addictive hold these devices have on our lives is broken, and not only that... we can look up and see how incredibly colorful and engaging the world we live in is.

A lot of the language that is used around smartphone addiction is condescending and accusatory -- as if the person making these accusations is somehow superior. To that I'll say that, one, I'm as prone to addiction as anybody, and two -- this isn't a condemnation of our society, these things are made to be addicting! They are designed to get and hold our attention, and they're designed by companies with millions of dollars at their disposal, so it's not a surprise that their efforts have succeeded.

luckily the only weapon we need is one we have, awareness, that the world in all its color and splendor is more miraculous than anything you'll ever see on a screen.

whether it's loons, sunrises or sets, cloud formations, deer, forests, the smallest bugs, butterflies or hummingbirds, we live in a created world that in so many ways is endlessly fascinating.

To see a hummingbird appear in front of you for a second in time is to realize how much life, in so many sizes is moving around us constantly. To see a loon gliding effortlessly before disappearing underwater for minutes at a time is be aware of how incredibly capable and adept so much of the planet's life is in a way we can't even hope to compete with.

Oftentimes as human beings we struggle with our own ideologies, hopes, priorities, misgivings, shortcomings, we struggle inside our own minds.

To be engaged in nature, whether you're hiking, fishing, canoeing, or photographing, is to see life that is always at work, in this sense.

life, whether it's a chipmunk or a deer, that is resting, is resting to gain energy to move, feed, hunt or reproduce.

Life is always in motion and for purpose, or conserving energy toward some end. Nature does not waste her time or her energy, she is nothing if not efficient.

And in that constant purpose we find a type of efficient beauty, movement and change with reason. It is beautiful because it makes sense, it purpose aligns with the purpose of the world it works within.

And that's where nature's most endearing quality comes from. It is nothing if not efficient. Its movement, and change, adaptation and energy, makes sense to our souls, and that reality resonates so deeply we find it satisfying.

We want, after all, above anything else, a world that makes sense, and the perfection of nature's beauty is that is exactly what it does best.