The Art of Staying Wild

This weekend I realised how easily freedom and wildness disappears and how domestication creeps in.

We were trying to book a family summer holiday (with stealth birding included) and ran into a wall of restrictions and commitments: medical appointments, school readiness schedules, play dates, birthday parties, travel logistics, rising costs, and the limited window of the school holidays. In the end, we could barely manage to book a single week away.

It struck me that we weren’t making a free choice; we were navigating a system of obligations that had quietly fenced us in.

Humans have always domesticated animals, gradually turning wild creatures into increasingly controlled, productive and often compromised versions of themselves; Wolves into Poodles, Tarpans into Beach Ponies, Aurochs into Friesians.  But we have also domesticated ourselves. We have bred ourselves from lean and finely evolved hunters and farmers into all manner of domesticated shapes and sizes with associated dodgy backs and health problems.

Modern life channels us through schedules, mortgages, jobs, social expectations, algorithms, and institutions that reward predictability and convenience. The fences that contain domesticated humans are not made of barbed wire. They are made of calendars, contracts, prices, economics, norms and responsibilities.

Who are the farmers on this human farm?. While it could be argued that it is the rich and the elites, those who own the means of production and the systems , it is often individuals who volunteer themselves to it to lesser or greater degrees.  In many ways the rich often trap themselves in their own castles. Everyone is responsible for their own freedom. 

Most of us don’t actually want complete freedom. Few people would choose the uncertainty of a truly wild existence. Comfort, security, and community are valuable. The danger is that comfort becomes the bait that draws us into ever more intensive systems, until our lives are organised almost entirely around maintenance: appointments, bills, deadlines, and social obligations. As Nietzsche argued- comfort and convenience is the ultimate trap

The goal, then, is not to reject civilisation but to find the right balance between domestication and wildness.

For me, “staying wild” means preserving a connection to nature, adventure, and self-reliance. It means leaving space for unplanned experiences, spending time outdoors, learning practical skills, and resisting the idea that every hour must be scheduled and optimised for system outcomes and expectations.

So when I ask how we stay wild and free, I don’t mean abandoning our responsibilities or expectations. I mean refusing to let them become the whole of life. Sometimes the answer is simply to prioritise the adventure: take the trip, accept the inconvenience, disappoint a few expectations, upset a few over domesticated associates and remember that life is much more than servicing the system.

Wildness is rarely lost all at once. It is usually surrendered one small obligation and comfort at a time…and that is not going to happen, so somehow I need to work out how to get another week away this summer holiday. There's been an outbreak of food poisoning in Cape Verde so package tours are going cheap and I need the endemics there. I can feel a plot brewing.