Ridiculous Reviews of Some of the Best National Parks
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
"The water is ice cold" Acadia National Park
"Miles and miles of nothing" Everglades National Park
"Not great" Glacier Bay
"Pretty average experience" Haleakala National Park
"Super unimpressed" Rocky Mountain National Park
"Scenery is distant and impersonal" Zion National Park
Folks who spend their lives away from nature often have no idea what to do with it when presented with it - appreciation of the natural world is a learned thing, not innate. Fear of nature, on the other hand, is an entirely natural thing, which is only overcome through experience. Prey animals which don’t fear being eaten in the dark don’t survive long, and we come from a long lineage of prey.
I live pretty remotely, surrounded by nothing but forest and mountain, and we occasionally have family or friends visit.
Just a few weeks ago, a friend from a previous incarnation came to stay with her husband - and they lasted two days of a planned week before they got spooked by animal noises (deer) outside at night, and decided to move on to a city. They like nature, but at a distance, preferably mediated via a documentary, as it transpires that large animals are scary if you aren’t familiar with them. Also small animals. There was a lot of screaming at spiders and ants and birds and toads. It’s a feeling I can empathise with, but one that I overcame as a kid. I grew up a bit in the country, a bit in the city, and remember being f’ing terrified of the woods near my suburban fringe childhood home. There were monsters there, I was sure of it.
Conversely, I’ve a 16 year old niece staying at the moment, and she’s just appeared this morning grinning from ear to ear, having watched a sounder of boar, with young, saunter past her cabin in the morning mist. They absolutely are dangerous, but only if you put yourself in harm’s way. She’s a country girl - she sees nature as her environment, rather than an alien one.
Anyway. I feel for folks who can’t appreciate nature in its raw form - it’s an inexhaustible font of wonder, if you’re prepared to take the time to even slightly understand it.
How do you manage to not get spooked by spiders?
From that time he is playing with and carrying spiders, frogs and various insects, small and large, without thinking about it. I guess it's about early experiences.
I think there are some VR experiences specifically intended to help with arachnophobia through exposure - I can’t speak to their efficacy, but I can speak to the efficacy of exposure in general to overcome a fear.
I guess it also helps that there are precious few venomous spiders around here, and those that there are won’t do you any more damage than a bee sting, and only then if you mortally threaten them.