If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.
— Eleonora Duse

Wickenberg, Arizona: Bob Well

By Bob Wells –

Sometimes I get to talking to people and I tell them how much I love the desert and look forward to going back to it every year. Pretty often they just stare at me like I’m a Martian and I’m talking gibberish. Then they tell me they just don’t get what anybody sees in desert. To them it’s just a big, brown, ugly, empty void — what’s the appeal in that?

If I tried to try to tell you why I love the desert, it would take me tens of thousands of words to answer and that still couldn’t do it justie. Or, I can just publish these pictures with a few words of explanation.

Even I have to admit it’s true, if you just take a casual, quick glance at the desert it doesn’t have a lot of appeal. But if you spend time in it and open your heart to it, somehow it gets into your inner being and changes you from the inside out.

The problem is most people are only operating at the level of their “civilized” mind. They’ve been so spoiled by a lifetime of concrete and bright lights that they lose their in-born connection with nature.

From birth all humans have a deep appreciation for nature (E.O. Wilson called it Biophilia). But the greatest tragedy is that our obsession with safety and comfort has separated us from it.

Instead of connecting with nature, we spend our whole lives inside our four walls where we are safe from heat, cold, rain or wind. Nature becomes an enemy instead of the source for all life and joy.

Without nature our lives become empty and void of meaning so we’re left with a perpetual search for a replacement. Many people turn to some form of addiction but even more turn to distractions, mainly in the form of some form of a screen like a TV, computer, Pad or game console. We’re so fixated and dependent on them we shrunk them down and carry them with us every second of the day in the form of our telephones. Ironically, we call them Smartphones but the truth is that the more we use them, the dumber we get.

The computer age has made us so dumb that we can go outside and see something as astounding as a beautiful sunrise, sunset or rainbow and not even be moved by it. Ho hum, it’s nothing compared to the latest game or blockbuster movie. Now those things impress us.

Shedding the blindness caused by the civilized mind is not easy, nor will it happen quickly. For most people, me included, it takes years. If you can see these photos and be moved by them, you’ve started down the path yourself. Keep going, it’s worth it.

Moab, Utah: Bob Wells

Republished with permission from CheapRVLiving.com. Bob Wells has been a full-time Van Dweller for 12 years and love’s it. He hopes to never live in a house again.