The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines wilderness as "a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings." Given that homo sapiens is a social creature, what is it that leads people to seek the solitude of the wilderness? Is it a conscious renunciation of the complexity of everyday life? Is it a need to refresh our relationship with Nature? Is it a personal quest to explore our physical and mental limits? Or is it merely the desire to experience an untouched part of our planet before it no longer exists?
The answer, of course, depends on whom you ask. However, given that wilderness by definition is an unnatural environment for human beings, the common theme must be the desire to escape one's current situation, implying a dissatisfaction with or a lack of something in our everyday life. But what exactly is it which we seek in the wilderness and for which we are willing to expend sometimes substantial resources to find? Some say it is the need to escape the stress of our modern world, yet this can be achieved by sleeping late on weekends. Others say a sense of peace, yet this is only scratching the surface.
The real reason why we escape to the peace and solitude of the wilderness is because it is only there, far removed from any sign of human influence, where we can experience Perfection. Perfection in the interrelationships and cycles of Nature, perfection in the function and regeneration of all living things and perfection in simplicity. It is thus easy to understand why mankind has, from its very beginnings, worshipped Nature. How ironic then that the religions which are closest to Nature, for example shamanism and paganism, are considered backward by modern society! In fact, it is precisely our monotheistic religions' reliance on human intermediaries such as the Pope, Jesus, Mohammed, etc. to define our relationship with our model of Perfection which has caused us to lose our personal contact and our direct experience with Nature. We have outsourced our innate, deeply personal relationship with Nature to organised religion.
Yet deep within some of us, our animal instinct to find our personal place in harmony with Nature, rather than to fight to conquer her, survives. And when we can no longer bear our fellow man's disrespect and willful destruction of our environment, this instinct leads us home - into the wilderness.
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