Human rewilding is not a simple matter of convincing people to abandon cities, re-inhabit natural spaces, and adopt the physical and social trappings of a gatherer-hunter lifestyle. Although, ultimately, that is what needs to happen if we are to continue much longer as a species, the most significant features of our present material situation involve things that fall outside of our control.
In addition, there are some seemingly insurmountable obstacles to immediately re-inhabiting natural spaces. For one thing, civilization has managed to usurp, corrupt, and despoil much of the once-inhabitable space with the corrosive dross from industry and resource extraction. Over a third of the Earth’s land mass is agricultural, with 11% devoted to industrial monoculture. Although only three percent is covered by cities, asphalt roads alone account for 3 million square miles of terrain in the continental US. And not a single river or stream flows clean of the toxic chemical taint of civilization.
Also, there are simply too many of us at this point—even if all of the Earth’s prior natural space was open and unspoiled it would not be enough to sustain 8 billion people pursuing authentically human lifestyles. A slightly less insurmountable, but nonetheless challenging obstacle is the lack of knowledge regarding how to live outside of civilization’s technological cocoon. We have carelessly abandoned several millennia worth of experiential wisdom in our eagerness to embrace our own technological dependence. A five-year-old gatherer-hunter child already knows orders of magnitude more about how to live on the Earth than the average civilized adult.
Rewilding implies not only that we make sweeping external changes in our collective physical circumstances, but that we enact radical internal changes in our psychological orientation to the world around us as well. And it is only the latter that is truly up to us as individuals.
Human rewilding, if it is to happen intentionally, must start with this. It must begin at the most local level, with those few things that are actually up to us—each of us as individuals, you and me. The fact that there are still a handful of five-year-old children who understand their human place in the world should give us hope. Not all has been lost beneath civilization’s smothering embrace. The Earth is patient and will not abandon its life-nurturing essence. Natural cycles of renewal and rebirth are still active. There are still trees and fish and birds and cleansing spring rainstorms. Our discontent itself, that vague sense that something is wrong, is a sign that we still retain core elements of our human nature. A wild human yet resides in each of us. We need only find ways to encourage its free and open expression.
All journeys start with a first step. In many cases, that first step is enough; once that first step is taken, the rest is just a matter of inertia. The first step begins with a decision, a choice. But, sometimes making that choice can be exceedingly difficult. There are a variety of psychological barriers when it comes to intentional personal change. Status quo bias, for example—people often prefer to maintain the status quo even though there are clearly better alternatives available. Merely considering whether a change might be needed in the first place can trigger an avoidance response—even positive change can be stressful.
In terms of making the decision to take the first meaningful steps toward human rewilding, I see a close parallel in the case of overcoming substance addiction. Many of the central features of civilization are addictive in more than just a metaphorical sense, and the personal psychological obstacles that we are likely to face while extracting ourselves from civilization seem to be of a similar form to those faced by a long-term addict attempting to conquer her substance dependence. Perhaps the psychology of addiction recovery can provide some useful insight.
According a popular theory of addiction recovery, intentional personal change of all kinds occurs in identifiable stages of progression: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination. During the precontemplation stage, the person is in denial about the need to change. Either the situation has yet to become desperate enough, or the mere thought of change is too scary to consider, or, perhaps, the person simply feels helpless and has reconciled themselves to living Thoreau’s “life of quiet desperation.” For those privileged few enjoying the many accoutrement benefits of civilization, the first of these is certainly the case. For those at the very bottom of the power hierarchy, it can only be the latter. I suspect that for the vast majority in between, the thought of change is simply too scary, and there are plenty of distractions available to keep us from recognizing the true precariousness of our situation.
Contemplation is the stage at which the person has fully acknowledge the need to change, but they have yet to take that first step. It is easy to get stuck at this stage, and, for an addict, this stage can be a form of limbo. Awareness that a change is desperately needed and committing yourself to doing something about it are entirely different things.
Preparation is the process of deciding how to take the first step. This stage involves planning a strategy of attack and mustering the determination to act.
The action stage is the stepping part of taking the first step, and can be, from a psychological perspective at least, the easiest part of the process.
For those struggling with overcoming addiction, relapse is a natural and expected part of recovery. This is where maintenance comes into play. Freeing yourself from daily dependence does not eliminate your cravings for the substance, and during periods of stress it can be easy to fall back into old habits of coping. Likewise, successful rewilding does not mean that civilization’s coercive influence will have been permanently vanquished. It is likely that residual tendrils of the past will linger for some time. Those of us born into civilization will carry civilized thought-forms with us for the rest of our lives, and the temptation to fall back on civilized modes of being will be ever-present. Islands of relapse are to be expected.
Termination is the stage at which the change has become a permanent feature of life, and the risk of falling back into old habits has entirely passed. However, for many and perhaps most people who have successfully recovered from substance addiction, the termination stage is never fully attained, and maintenance continues for the rest of their life. For all intents and purposes, we can assume maintenance to be the terminal stage for personal rewilding as well, and the termination stage will likely have to wait for future generations, for a time when the residual stain of civilization has sufficiently faded.
Rewilding, like sobriety, is not an either-or proposition. And it is not something that will likely happen all at once. It is a process of growth, an intimate personal journey. With any important journey, it can be tempting to overemphasize the future destination while ignoring the present path. This is part and parcel of the civilized factory-production mindset, a mindset that places all value on the final product, the end result. How you get to that end result is largely irrelevant from this goal-centered standpoint, although efficiency demands that the path is as fast and direct as possible—finding shortcuts and cutting corners where possible.
The journey of rewilding is not a destination, however. Rewilding involves learning to let go of oppressive civilized notions, such as the notion that there are destinations in the first place, the notion that life is purposeful, and the notion that purposeful action must be directed toward external goals and benchmarks and measurable results. Becoming human is not a result to be obtained or an objective to be achieved. The term rewilding does not describe an end-state or goal, it refers to movement along a particular kind of path: movement away from lifestyles grounded in mediation and control, movement toward increased human freedom and authenticity. Rewilding, to the extent that its pursuit possesses any goal-like qualities, merely provides a kind of focal orientation, a general direction of travel.
And the path of rewilding is unlikely to be straight and smooth. There may be abrupt switchbacks and steep ascents and dangerous crossings. These are essential parts of the journey; not merely difficulties to be endured, but opportunities to be embraced. Becoming human is not about reaching a shining mountain summit in the distance. It is something ongoing, something that occurs right here and right now, in this place and in the present moment. It is, quite literally, a “becoming,” an unfolding, a growing, a relearning, a moment-by-moment emerging into a more human state of being.
All change starts with the present moment. All intentional change involves a comparison between a current state and a desired state that is imagined to exist in some future now. The comparison itself can serve as a potent obstacle to change. The gulf between reality and desire can seem insurmountable. What is frequently lost in this comparison is that the space between the present moment and the imagined future now is not an empty void. It is a rich and abundant landscape, infinitely furnished, and filled to the brim with present moments just like this one.
The present moment is all we ever have, and all future moments are grounded in what happens right now. So, we should act right now, in the present moment, as if the desired state has already been achieved. Some Buddhists believe the very moment that you sit, cross your legs, and assume a meditative posture, you have already at that point achieved enlightenment—the end is not something that can be separated from the beginning. And there is this from Nietzsche:
“If someone obstinately and for a long time wants to appear something it is in the end hard for him to be anything else. The profession of almost every man, even that of the artist, begins with hypocrisy, with an imitation from without, with a copying of what is most effective. He who is always wearing the mask of a friendly countenance must finally acquire the power over benevolent moods without which the impression of friendliness cannot be obtained—and finally these acquire power over him, he is benevolent.” (italics in the original)
