Entry 10- Why I Need Wild

Why do I need wild?

At the beginning of the semester, I would have told you I don’t.  

Why would I? Wild felt distant from my daily life. My time as a student was structured around classes and extracurriculars. My time as a young professional was spent commuting into the city and working long hours in a skyscraper during my banking internship. My life felt high-stakes and forward-moving. Nature was something I passed through, and that seemed fine. I attached a picture of where my post-graduate is headed, which poses the obvious question: how could the wild possibly make me a better student or future banker? 

In this course, I was challenged to intentionally engage with nature. Compared to my typical academic experience, there were no stakes. My grade didn’t depend on my ability to interpret nature, just my attempts to engage with it. This made it easy to give it a shot. Pretty soon, I realized I needed wild as much as anyone. 

Wild showed me that I needed to slow down. Before this semester, I had missed out on the daily moments I now value the most: the mystery of animals following their routines, the flowers blossoming around campus, and the evening skies that demanded my attention. Fortunately, the wild isn’t defined by distance, scale, or labels. I don’t have to drive up to the Nature Center to encounter it. Instead, its peace and comfort are right outside my front door, even in the cityscape I am moving to; I just have to choose to acknowledge it. 

Most importantly, the wild helped ease the pressure I put on myself. I realized (I guess this was always pretty obvious) that I am not the center of everything. Whether watching animals interact or working to restore a landscape at the Nature Center, I’ve seen that life is constantly unfolding around me. That realization has been grounding. 

As I graduate and enter a career infamous for its demands on my time and energy, and "a city that never sleeps", I will need that peace, perspective, and appreciation. That is exactly why I need wild. It keeps me aware, present, and connected to the world beyond myself.

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