I have always been into trekking and minimalism. This quarantine, I realized that there are many ways we can learn how to be a better trekker at home. While you are trekking, your backpack needs to be light, and you can just keep the essentials in your backpack. Quarantine is very similar because luxuries aren’t available right now and what we appreciate most right now are basic necessities. We know that migrants are travelling several hundred kilometres by foot only to get back home and have shelter, we appreciate the roof on our heads as much as a trekker appreciates his tent in rough weather conditions.
Doing your own work is very important when you are out for trekking. Things like, lifting your own backpack and cooking your own food, maintaining a positive mindset for yourself and staying motivated is very important for self-sustenance. At home, with much of the privilege stripped off, and most of the domestic staff gone, as we work all by ourselves, we understand how to be more independent. It can be very hard to keep a positive mind this quarantine season, with social media trying to urge us to be productive and internet challenges. However, a positive mindset is the only thing which can really keep us going and get us through this tough time of a lockdown. Humans are social animals, and we rely on human interaction to get more dopamine running through our bodies. However, there are many treks and even paths in life where we find ourselves rather alone. Though we are with the family at home, quarantine still teaches us to be relatively alone and stay cut off from all the noise.
Why are people hating on quarantine so much all over social media? We learn to appreciate the little things when we trek. The little views of snow-capped peaks, forests, and birds we see around us when we trek are very important to us because they keep us going. Staying in quarantine has helped me respect the view from my window much more. A sight which was often ignored, I didn’t even know I could spot pink leaves from my window. However, now I know that I can. I am much more aware of my surroundings. We can look at this positively and see it as a time where we build on our awareness.
I also feel like my bond with my family is getting much stronger right now. As we spend more time together, we are getting to know deeper things about each other, which we would have otherwise ignored, simply because we had distractions and could afford to ignore the habits we disliked. Trekking has a similar effect where the mountains open up the person inside you and you find yourself being vulnerable to other people. Cities have taken away our abilities to be vulnerable to each other to a large extent, however, with quarantine, I find myself trusting people a lot more.
Mountains are generally the place where you can shut down all the noise around you, think about yourself and focus on your life. Quarantine has helped us shut a lot of that noise, focus, rethink and bring about change. Every day is a new day, you can build, recreate and work on yourself.
With so many social media challenges coming along, I’d say that the real one is to get through quarantine positively, by focusing on what it is trying to teach you. This is our chance to come out of quarantine, a new person, to learn the art of minimalism and of trusting yourself. Is it really difficult to notice and observe for a few minutes every day, the beauty in everything which may lie beyond your window, the art of appreciating the aesthetic of the simple which lies inside your house? This quarantine, try out this little trek in your own house because it is a lot like one. You won’t really feel the need to travel if you find joy in your own space.
