Image via Wikipedia

Chapter 5: Affinity

Up until this point the only things we’ve discussed have been all the really shitty parts of getting you to understand basic survival. In a way, until you have the skills to live there, you cannot learn to appreciate your environment. You cannot appreciate a bike until you learn to depend upon it just the same way that you cannot appreciate another person until they are dependable; this is called affinity and sometimes love.

You need to take affinity with your environment in order to go beyond surviving in it – in order to thrive you have to love where you are.

Start off by being curious about the things going on around you, like a child. Watch the animals go about their lives and learn from them. The squirrel and deer tell us acorns can be eaten (I suggest boiling them), the vulture indicates where something has died, the crow caws when disturbed.

Look around you whenever you can and learn to take pleasure in what is happening around you, as the Greeks did with their belief in doing each thing with the effort befitting its last time. They called it Arete or living with the knowledge that you may die at any moment.  This wasn’t despair, it was doing each thing to the best of your ability; hunting, cooking, loving – everything.

Try to learn to appreciate a sunset as well as a sunrise. Try to appreciate the sunlight, especially after a long rain (and vise versa). You should approach the world the way you would a friend and experience it reciprocate.

All of your favorite shops might be gone, and all of your favorite dive bars along with your favorite Lebanese restaurant and your favorite book or your iPod, but all things pass and you were bound to grow out of them anyway. Adapt and learn to love new things for you were already doing that before it all changed.