As a child I was told constantly by my parents to ‘switch the TV off and go and play outside’. We had an orchard and were surrounded by fields. Mostly I didn’t mind once I was outside. And from an early age I formed a view that outdoors was more virtuous than indoors. That human problems started by being indoors too much.
Scroll forward a thousand centuries. I still think that outdoors is better than indoors in all sorts of ways. But only just now, looking through Linked-in for people to connect to I realised everyone there was an INDOORS person with an INDOORS job. Yet in the past many if not most jobs were outdoors. My grandfather was a farmer who was outdoors all the time, until he retired in his 70s. Yet both my parents had indoors jobs. Most everyone I know does.
A few people get outdoors jobs- being park rangers and eco-consultants who look for rare species about to be trampled by a new development. The odd things is a friend who does this work told me: they queue up for the low level outdoor jobs with national parks – people with Phds willing to work for peanuts. But the management jobs, indoor work, are increasingly hard to fill with good people. It’s just another job. People – well educated people – want to be outdoors more. They want to nail their outdoor colours to the mast and identify as an outdoors worker.
Mind you a brickie I met was scornful of people who wanted to work outdoors- he yearned for a nice warm office…And when I walked the Pyrenees I remember how much of a luxury it was to be able to sit down at a table inside a hut or building, just for a break from being outdoors all the time.
Maybe it’s about being mainly outdoors as long as outdoors isn’t too viciously cold or hot or wet or boring. I suppose a building site is never going to be as interesting as wandering around a national park.
I think there is also something going on with wanting to identify as an outdoors person. Outdoors we can get our heads straight. Outdoors is less neurotic.
Outdoors it’s always different. You are at home on the planet. You can live in a monastic cell or a cave all your life but it wasn’t meant to be this way. People are tough, and flexible, but being outdoors is our birth right isn’t it?