The 4 Pillars of Survival and How to Reconnect to Nature with Cliff Hodges

Imagine a world where everybody felt like a global stakeholder.

Picture a wild landscape that everyone loved and cared for because they had experienced its true awesomeness for themselves.

What would it feel like if you could be “out there” with the ability to start a fire by friction, climb a mountain with minimal help, or build a shelter where other people only saw trees and grass?

Each person who listens to my guest for this episode – the fascinating and funny Cliff Hodges – gets us one step closer to a deep reconnection with nature. Everyone who surfs, rock climbs, backpacks, mountain bikes, or does survival camp via Cliff's Adventure Out programs becomes more self-sufficient and more willing to partner with humans and non-humans alike.

This Cliff fella is ambitious, collaborative, respectful, and simply my kind of dude. And you'll especially dig him and his mission if you've lost that loving feeling for wild spaces (you know, the one we're all born with that's often culturally unlearned or environmentally distant).

We call it “survival.” But for thousands of years, it was just called living. It was called waking up and facing another day. And now we have this image of survival as a struggle – going out into this alien environment … and so I remind people it isn't a struggle. Survival is living in a different way and context … Moving back to a simplified, basic, and instinctual version of human life. The more disconnected we get, the easier it is for us to destroy what sustains us. – Cliff Hodges

From a curious Santa Cruz, CA youth to an MIT-trained electrical engineer and back to a problem-solving Santa Cruz nature enthusiast, he can inhabit many mindsets and places that other people can't.

It's shocking to me when people say they aren't an environmentalist. Then I say, ‘Well, are you suicidal?” If you don't care about the planet you live on, where are you looking to end up? Right now, this is it. – Cliff Hodges

You may want to listen to this episode multiple times to feel the full weight of some of the biggest challenges of our lifetime. But it all starts when you press that play button … so here we go!

You're about to Learn …

Transcript

The transcript will not be available until I find a new transcriptionist (if you know someone good, let me know).

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