People often talk about freedom of choice. In the cities you have a wide selection of clothes, restaurants, activities, gear, educations, etc. You can get from here to there with a car, a bus, a bike or an electric scooter. You can communicate by phone, email, text, Messenger, Skype, Zoom or Teams. And you can be whatever you want.

That all sounds good, but what I think is even better is the freedom I experience when I don't have to make all of these choices all the time. When nature makes all my decisions, and I can do what suits me best right then and there. At my most extreme, a friend and I lived on a deserted island for nine months without phones, radios or clocks. On the way there we had to climb over a mountain pass. When we got to the other side and saw the beach where we were going to live, both cell service and civilisation disappeared.

When the wind howled outside our cabin and rain poured down, we had only one choice; we stayed inside and read a book. When wave after wave crashed beautifully onto the shore, the choice was easy; we surfed. When the mountains were covered in white, we pulled our our snowboards. The other days we chopped wood. As you probably understand, we didn't have much stuff with us. That also made the choices easy. When the wind howled outside our cabin, I didn't have to choose between a grey, green or black rain coat – I just had the one. The same went for most other things.

That's how easy life was. I found a lot of freedom in not needing to make so many decisions. I'm not able to keep that feeling in my everyday life now, but I dream of it. Something happens to me when I don't have all of the possibilities civilisation gives me. All the things I thought were so important, all of a sudden weren't very important anymore. When the possibility is there it feels very important to answer that text, send that email and make a visit to that store. But living on the beach gave me perspective. Most things can wait. Actually, only a fraction of it is really necessary.