“All nature is doing her best each moment to make us well—she exists for no other end. Do not resist her.” - Henry David Thoreau

“Natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or society… Whenever we destroy beauty or substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man’s spiritual growth.” - Rachel Carson

“Do you have rooms available?”

After three days traversing the mountainous valley in Hunza in the extreme northern part of Pakistan, we wanted a comfortable place to stay with warm running water and Wi-Fi. Luckily we found this charming bed and breakfast, called Fallen Man’s Heaven, in Gulmit and rushed inside tired and hungry.

“Yes, but I’m sorry, we only allow families.”

The young woman was standing behind the counter in the kitchen, peeling onions. This was her private home.

“But we are a family,” I said desperately, and hugged my friend Pony.

“Nice try,” she said, laughing.

“Please, just for one night. It’s already 8pm. We’ll be quiet and leave in the morning.”

“Let me check with my husband. He’ll be back soon. Why don’t you tell me what you want to eat and I’ll cook dinner till then.”

So there was a chance. No way they kick us out after feeding us, we said to each other. That violates all rules of the wonderful hospitality this region is renowned for.

“Can we please have the Wi-Fi password?”

Since we set off on our travel we had no connection with the outside world. It was stressful just thinking about all of the emails and messages that must have piled up, waiting for our response. It was criminal to be unplugged for this long in our increasingly virtual, fast-paced life.

An attractive, rugged man with salt-and-pepper strands came through the front door and sat beside us on the wooden table. We all looked above from our screens.

“Welcome to our home. Where are you coming from?”

He introduced himself as Faiz. His wife Saira finished preparing a delightful feast. And we relaxed knowing we’ll be able to stay for the night.

The next morning, we all slept in, and I spent thirty minutes on my phone before jumping out of bed, once I was caught up with all the notifications.

The day was bright and clear and Faiz was having tea on the deck. Behind him, the snow-covered mountaintops were ablaze with the glistening sun. He told us a story about his Snow Lake expedition, a high-altitude glacial basin in the Karakoram mountain range. It turned out that Faiz was an avid, professional high-end trekker with clients spread around the world looking to explore Pakistan’s untouched marvels of nature.

We had come to Hunza with a similar purpose. But we weren’t having the time of our life. It took seven years to plan our friends’ reunion, but realized rather quickly that we were not ready for an adventure—neither physically nor mentally. It didn’t help that we had an annoying guide who discouraged us on every step. We opened up to Faiz about our struggles, as if he was our therapist.  

“It’s not your fault.”

We all looked at each other, puzzled. For a moment I even imagined the iconic Robin Williams scene from the film Good Will Hunting, in which he comforts Matt Damon’s character using the exact same words.

“You’ve come from the concrete system. It will take some time for you to rediscover your true nature.”

By “concrete system” Faiz meant our encased city life, trapped indoors, day in and day out. The result of mega cities and mass urbanization is that the average American spends 93% of his or her life indoors. Adults in the US spend less time outdoors than they do inside vehicles—less than 5% of their day. Worse, they spend over 10 hours a day in front of a digital screen. Time spent in parks, woods, or fields has shrunk dramatically due to lack of green spaces, digital technology, and parents’ safety fears. Three-quarters of UK children spend less time outside than prison inmates. A 2013 study found that four out of five children in the UK were not adequately “connected to nature.”

Everything about the concrete system was unnatural—the food, music, even the people. Faiz and Saira, on the other hand, took pride in organic living. They built this cottage themselves over several years and had their own little farm where fresh fruits and vegetables were hand picked every day. In the natural world, it seemed people could live happily without big houses and high-paying jobs. They spent less time working to earn money and more time doing things that interested them.

“Life in the concrete system is very difficult. I know I’ve lived there. The hustle bustle of the city not only kills our capacity for wildness and wonder, it destroys the human spirit. A little preparation can go a long way toward helping you endure in the natural world—and once you complete a trek, it will change the way you see everything.”

Meeting Faiz smack in the middle of our trip seemed destiny. We no longer felt inadequate or out of place; we were encouraged to test the depths of our limits and the heights of our determination.

Coming into the trip, I was so arrogant about my abilities that I did not care to bring hiking boots, preferring to pack sandals and flat-soled Tom’s for comfort instead. Nature had taught me a lesson by not letting me near her, stumbling every time. Following Faiz’s advice: I borrowed old hiking boots, found a shrub to be my walking stick, and vowed to myself to keep standing and active during breaks (so the muscles remain energized and in motion) as opposed to just slumping on the ground.

The destination was Naltar, a lush valley at an altitude of 4,678m. Nestled among giant mountain peaks and towering forest trees, Naltar hides seven magnificent lakes—each unique in its own beauty. Initially, the trek was fairly easy due to a gentle slope, but it got tougher as rain started to pour and the terrain steepened. I found myself looking to the ground and walking softly on the mountain soil, careful not to slip. It took us eight hours to discover each of the lakes—and yet it felt like a breeze. We were filled with adrenaline and amazement. The Naltar trek had the most enchanting views I’ve ever seen.

And Faiz was right, the journey, undoubtedly one of the most enthralling experiences of my life steeped with awe and mystery, gave us new eyes with which to see everything. A lonely mountaintop, the stillness of a lake, or the winds of a forest all have things to teach us.

Standing tall in the mountain forest, I felt small, a tiny speck of a massive universe swirling around. It helps to think in those terms, as all our troubles seem trivial in the long history of the earth. We are not so impatient once we get a bigger picture of what is going on.

In the concrete system, we are all trying hard to be somebody, but here, in companionship with the earth, I realized the secret of being nobody. By a reduced sense of self-importance relative to something larger and more powerful that we are connected to, you can’t help but feel generous and desirous to improve the welfare of others. There is a sense of peace and calm in knowing that we can play a small part in an intricate cosmic dance that is life.

Emerson said that we must foray into nature in order to understand the “perpetual presence of the sublime.” Surrounded by God’s wonder and beauty, I found myself unwittingly bowing my head in humility to move forward, watchful as not to make any wrong movement or crush or disturb anything in the least. In the natural world, we must let each step determine the next. We did not always know where we were going. This is in contrast to our urban reality where we plan our whole life out.

I arrived at a new, profound understanding of what British environmentalist Michael McCarthy meant when he wrote:

The natural world is not separate from us, it is part of us. It is as much a part of us as our capacity for language; we are bonded to it still, however hard it may be to perceive the union in the tumult of modern urban life. Yet the union can be found, the union of ourselves and nature, in the joy which nature can spark and fire in us. 

Do not resist her.


Photo: Jawad's iPhone