I find that people in general tend to admire something that has a price tag on it, or that is worth a lot of money, like a diamond or a ruby, but we gloss over or dismiss something natural that may be equally beautiful, but has no price tag, or is deemed less valuable by economic standards. As an intrepid traveler and photographer, I have cultivated an eye for the beautiful in nature, even though it may be fleeting or worthless. Also as a travel blogger, I am beginning to see the beauty in what would be considered mundane, normal, everyday items of views. This is what the life of a digital nomad will cultivate in you. You begin to see the beautiful, the valuable and even the sacred all about you – you begin to see it everywhere.
My travels along the Cape south coast of Africa, here in the beautiful Garden Route, have brought me some really attractive visuals, particularly in the flowering plant life that this area is home to. It’s called the Garden Route because the climate is just perfect for prolific forest as well as lush indigenous “fynbos” vegetation. At first glimpse, the local endemic indigenous flora appears quite unassuming due to being a semi-arid area, much like the fringes of a desert. And so the plant life is quite small and, may be low to the ground or have very small leaves and flowers.
Unless you go really close up, you miss the actual flower, but now that it is summer here in the south, the flowers have been making their presence known. And they look like real beauties, in a small and humble way. And it is these floral decorations that appear to me as lovely or attractive as diamonds or rubies. I have photographed a few of them on my travels along this coastline and they are beautiful not only due to their pretty flowers, meant to attract the pollinators, but also due to the fact that they are particularly rare. These treasures of nature may not last longer than a few days, and may not be tradeable for fiat, like precious stones, but they are sweet nevertheless, and they bring beauty to the eye of the beholder as they shine or blossom for a few days a year in season.
During that time they display a harmonious and balanced sense of beauty that appeals to anyone who admires symmetry and proportion, as well as color and hue. I have yet to identify many of them, since botany is not my strong point. I prefer adventuring forth into new or distant regions, at least on my own personal map. There are few, if any uncharted regions of the world left. It has mostly been explored by now. And particularly because of this, it appears even more unusual to find such remote and hidden places, now that the planet is so well inhabited.
Hidden regions like these that I explore along the southernmost coastline of Africa are a treasure too, when I encounter them. They are like a glimpse of heaven on earth. Not that we can comprehend the meaning of heaven. We simply have our physical senses to interpret anything, and they are attuned to the earth and it’s climate. Nothing heavenly about that. Yet among these mundane discoveries on earth, some are conducive to an uplifted mood or state of consciousness, and when we find them, they bring us joy. They provide harmony like the “feng shui” of a zen Buddhist temple, or an ancient Vishnu shrine.
These places, like the one you can see in my video clip of the rock pools on the cliff edges of the Africa south coast, are able to bring us to a place of peace within our own minds, just by there ambience and setting. And this is why people gravitate to them or build their homes in such areas. The real estate industry will tell us that “location is everything” because one can fetch a high price for a chunk of nature if it is conducive to good health or peace of mind for the beholder. Sea view properties are way more expensive or valuable than the rest simply due to the sense of health and harmony one gets from such a view.
Well, these places exist for free already. It’s free to sit on the beach. It’s free to spend all day by this fresh water pool in the cliffs above the shoreline. And yet the system comes and privatizes it, puts a price on it and makes a fat profit from selling it. And the flowers that blossom all around are also free. They display their beauty in the wild for all to see, like gems or treasures of different colors. These natural items all bring us great joy and inspiration if only we take the opportunity to seek them out. I can walk about among the little gems of wild flowers all day long here in the Garden Route. For free. And I can enjoy the most idyllic surroundings here too, without paying a penny, since it’s public land, free to all of the public.
So whether you have money or not, you can still relish the inspirational properties of nature all around you at any time. A bunch of cut flowers may cost a small fortune today at a florist, but the same joy can be found by admiring the flowers that are alive in the soil of the African continent. They may be less spectacular, but they are more valuable due to their scarcity and delicacy. Modern civilization has commoditised everything, including water, and soon fresh air. Unless it has a price tag, we now think it is worthless, but that is all modern consumerist conditioning. It is a symptom of the flashy digitalized world, here in the modern era.
I would recommend going outdoors as much as possible, and particularly far outdoors, to the wilderness sometimes, and reconnecting with nature. We need to remember our true home which is in nature, not in the concrete cities of today. We are the healthiest when in nature and surrounded by fresh air, with our feet touching the soil or rock. The beach and mountains or fields are our organic sources of vitality, which seems obvious, but my not be to everyone, especially those raised in cities. By exploring the Garden Route here like this today, I have come to find where I belong, where I feel healthiest, and it is when surrounded by the elements of sea, land and air.
So for this reason I am writing my travel blog – not only to share great exploratory opportunities for other travelers, but also to remind those who are stuck in the concrete cities that there is a healthier alternative that is freely available, regardless of your budget. And if you are in a city where there is no nearby natural environment, like a park or lawn of hill or beach, then you need to reconsider your residence and aim to relocate to a place in nature. The government of certain nations is pushing their people into urban concrete cities, which is against their good health, but the government want you to be labor force, dependent on them, with little recourse to self-sufficiency in health or food.
As a modern day person in a desperate economic model, you may feel as if there is no choice but to take to the city to find money via a job. And this is the trap. This is how some unscrupulous governments entrain the masses to leave the healthy rural areas where they have always grown their own produce, and is forcing them to the concrete cities to live like a slave in a hovel for peanuts that were freely available in the farm areas to begin with. But the allure of the propaganda marketing agencies influences the minds of the masses to feel that they are missing out on opulence that's found in the cities, when in fact it is the opposite way around.
This is how I have seen it play out over the past half century of my life on this planet. And I have chosen rather to travel to places of nature and have found so much opulence and treasure in the form of lakes, streams, ponds, seas, hills, cliffs, mountains and most of all wildlife and flowers, that the cities have now become less attractive to me. It’s up to the individual of course, and you know your personal needs best, but no one should ever feel trapped or without some source of shelter, or source of good health, when it can be found all around us in nature. Sometimes actually leaving the so-called opulence of the city with all its lifestyle pitfalls, to find real peace of mind, good health and happiness in the rural areas of nature, is preferable. You can always take your gadgets with you.
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