What Makes Us Addicted to Watching People Walk Away From Everything and Live Off-the-Grid?
Ben Fogle’s “New Lives in the Wild” and How It Reflects Our Digital Exhaustion
They’re not the problem. We are.
The idea behind this is we, on the one hand, are cheerfully observing videos on people who left to live in mountain cabins and forest hideouts, despite the fact that they left behind all the things we want to put down.
The fact that we’re drawn to people who fled the very screens we are peeping on them is the puzzle of the time.
We just entertain ourselves? No, we reflect.
The Irony Preventing Us To Look Away
After an exhausting day of Zoom calls and notification overload, I came across Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild.
At that moment, on my screen appeared a couple living in a wooden cabin in wild Alaska. They had no heating, no hot shower, and no Wi-Fi.
I should have changed the program, but I just could not take my eyes off the screen.
This is what makes the series so intriguing, the reality of it is way more captivating than fiction. It is not the drama or the twists that shock you. It is the emptiness, the unpretentiousness of it. It’s the emptiness that leads us, the viewers, to the question:
What if we simply… left?
Everyone Has Their Breaking Point
In each episode, Ben converses with someone who has “broken away” from the “normal life”:
- The now-disheartened executive who resides in a mountain cottage in the southern part of Chile
- The ex-teacher who constructs bamboo shelters in a rainforest
- The couple from the town who are making their children grow on a separate island
Every episode’s quest of the common man in different stages starts with different illnesses-climate, burnout, meaning deprivation-but they have one mutual feature: they stopped trusting the supposed right path.
Why Can’t We Stop Watching?
Well, exhibition is the main distractor. At least, that’s how it seems to me. Most people, for instance, wouldn’t want to be out in the rain, cutting wood, or chasing chickens for dinner.
Actually, it is not about doing things that we’d find exhausting, but rather about watching someone survive without that digital noise which is in our lives most of the time. That’s the thing that triggers the magic change in us.
The reasons we can’t take our eyes off them:
1. We’re Tired Of The Way We Live Now
Technology and the modern lifestyle bombard us with stimuli, choices, and obligations.
The more options we have, the less free we feel, and the more worn out we get.
The disconnection of these folks that they have is something that we wish we had on a deep level: clarity. We get up and we know what we have to do without thinking. Chop wood. Gather eggs. Repair the roof. Ordinary tasks with visible beginnings and ends.
2. We Crave Something Genuine
Our world is nothing but a series of filters, edits, and optimizations.
However, a person who is legs-deep in mud and breeze-lister, constructing something with their hands feels real in a way that our digital lives oftentimes don’t.
Their dirt-under-the-fingernails truth is magnetic to us.
3. They Did What We’re Too Scared To Do
The imposed discursive erasure that the hobbled Simon Cummings reveals “outrage is now the whole of the law; nothing more and nothing less.”
“Psyche: The Highest of All Callings?”
Someone in our place would have said “well done!” to them. They overcame the popular tendency of their generation. “We won’t do it,” they decided.
4. Our Lives Seem Out of Our Hands
In a world where attention is the new currency, and productivity is the new religion, someone who could choose their own speed becomes a quiet hero.
This island’s residents, as well as these forest people, are teaching us what free will looks like.
5. We Miss The Natural World
We were designed to walk, see, and hear as nature intended us to- barefoot, staring into space to hear birds instead of messages.
For the most part, we live in a society where humankind is physically disconnected from the environment, which is now technology-accelerated in this age.
Disconnection has its price, and our health has suffered for it. Studies show that even imagining natural settings can help lower stress and heart rate. Nature is not just a luxury; it is vital for mental well-being.
The Question That Could Change Everything
You might not disappear into a forest next week.
However, maybe you need to do this: be honest for a second and ask yourself this one question:
“What in my life is no longer productive (for me) and do I keep it just because I have always done it that way?”
This question is not much easier to deal with if answered sincerely.
Because often we live as if we were in a ghost story. The habits we haven’t chosen are the ones we are struggling with:
- Reading emails before doing anything in the morning
- Saying yes to commitments we detest
- Running on a pace that burdens us
- Defining by rules we had never set
These widgets stick around because we have never challenged them. They seem minor: a notification we didn’t turn off. A meeting we didn’t question. A pace of life we have outgrown.
Start With Something Small
The show does not push for a revolution. It rather gently suggests that you have the right to question and change things.
Not everything at once. Not everything. But perhaps only one thing at a time.
Dramatic turns of events are not necessary to release the cabin in the woods. The next time you are experiencing frustrations, just try this:
- Forget about everything officially for ten minutes.
- Take deep breaths. Get in touch with your body.
- Begin by asking yourself if this laying in bed, this pacing of life, this obligation actually serves you well
- Make one little change in your life. Turn off your phone notifications. Block thirty minutes of unscheduled time. Say no to one unnecessary demand.
You won’t need to live in the woods to remember what really matters.
Sometimes, all it takes is a real moment of silence to discover what your life is trying to tell you.
If this week, you make just one tiny change, nothing may happen dramatically.
Or, perhaps, something gentle will start to change.
What is one small change you could make today to connect a little more to the nature and wilderness of your life? Share your ideas down below; I would love to hear them.
📖 Join THE Silent Script
Because some of the loudest stories are written in silence. ✍
