In modern society, we’re conditioned to believe that acquiring more stuff makes our lives better. But what if getting back to basics leads to a richer life? What if consuming less and connecting with nature more opens us up to what really matters?
Markus Torgeby is the author of Under the Open Skies: Finding Peace and Health in Nature. On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Markus joins Ross to explain how he came to live alone in the forest of Northern Sweden and describe how stripping life down to the basic needs helped him identify what was truly important and heal from trauma.
Markus shares his take on technology, discussing how to gauge how much screen time is right for you (and help your kids do the same). Listen in for insight on living a richer life by consuming less and get Markus’ advice on taking small steps to build your own deep relationship with nature.
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Resources
Under the Open Skies: Finding Peace and Health in Nature by Markus Torgeby and Frida Torgeby
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon. I am the creative editor at Nori’s Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Marcus Torgaby, author of Under the Open Skies, Finding Peace and Health in Nature, which you produced with your wife. You took some beautiful pictures for it. Thanks for being here, Marcus. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Markus Torgeby: I am happy to have you here. How do you describe this book? It’s just my ambition to help people to build a relationship with nature. That just was the ambition when I wrote this book.
Ross Kenyon: And it seems that your ambition is rather ambitious, given that you didn’t do it in an easy way in connecting with nature, did you?
Markus Torgeby: No, no, I did it the hardcore way. Yeah, yeah, that’s the way it should be.
Ross Kenyon: Let’s fill our listeners in a little bit about how you came to appreciate this lifestyle and live it so hardcore, as you say.
Markus Torgeby: You know, when I was around 20 years old, it was just too much thoughts in my head. I had no direction in life. So I just I thought that I must put myself in a situation where everything is black and white. So that’s the reason why I took the train up north in Sweden and just walk three, four hours out in the forest and build me a camp out there and stay there for four years. I can understand that this sounds crazy, but for me right then it was just the right decision.
I had so many thoughts in my head and I think this was the best option for me to find a way forward. And I thought that maybe nature can help me with that. And I thought if I live close to my basic needs, maybe I find something. So that was the reason. So close to the Arctic Circle, so far up north. And of course, in the wintertime, it’s quite cold, minus 40, 30, 40 degrees. So you must stay focused if you will make it. But it’s also that was, you know, it’s a big satisfaction when you feel that, OK, maybe I can fix this.
Ross Kenyon: And when you started, you were alone, and it strikes me as ascetic, monastic. Instead of being a desert father, you’re maybe an Arctic father or some sort of Buddhist ascetic. Do you see yourself as part of an ascetic tradition somehow, or is that the wrong way to understand it?
Markus Torgeby: No, no. I see the guys that live in the desert. I read about them when I was young, so maybe... Yeah, maybe they lived in a warmer area, but the mindset was the same. So yeah, I had that thought in my head.
Ross Kenyon: What’s it like when you strip out so much of what we view as necessary? What’s left behind when it’s just sort of you and your very basic elemental needs?
Markus Torgeby: Life becomes rich and that was very strange for me to feel that because now if I see a guy or girl live simple as that maybe I can think that it seems a little bit harsh and hardcore and empty and poor but when you live In that environment, everything, you feel a big richness because, okay, today it’s really, really cold. And then you start the fire. And when you feel the heat from a fire over the chest, you know, it’s a great feeling inside. So it was a very rich life.
And that has helped me a lot to realize that I don’t need so much things anymore. Rather the opposite, to focus, to be happy with less things. So it was a good start for me to move out, to feel that.
Ross Kenyon: I can see that there is a lot of learning that took place around materialism and how much you need. But it seems like a lot of your desire to be in nature, well, the way that you’re putting it on this show is you had a lot of thoughts. And in the book, it sounds like There’s various elements of trauma in your life or things that you were trying to deal with. I think a lot of people would say that it’s better probably to run closer to people in cases like that rather than to seek solace being alone.
What might you say about something like that?
Markus Torgeby: But I think that sometimes it’s important that you put yourself in a situation where it’s up to you to survive. Because if you survive, you have to find something. If you always have people around you, you always ask them for advice and things like that. And I think that can just make you more... Sometimes I think you must just find it and it’s not always easy. But for me, it was like that. I realized that it will not be a salvation if I talk to other people. I must find my own way.
And the only way I can do that is by myself. So sometimes I think it’s important to live a black and white life. Not always, but sometimes, especially when you have like anxiety or you don’t feel happy. I think if you put yourself in a black and white situation, everything will become more clear, I think. So it’s easier to feel and to see what’s important for real. You understand what I try to say?
Ross Kenyon: I think so. And pardon me if this is not how you see your cultural background, but it strikes me as extremely Nordic. It reminds me of Soren Kierkegaard or Ingmar Bergman of these sort of like stark melancholic, not a lot of words almost.
Markus Torgeby: No, no, no, no. Yeah. It’s like that, you know, you know, Now, when I look out from the window, now it’s like seven in the evening in Sweden, and the place we live, it’s just dark outside. I don’t see any light, and I see the stars, and I think that do something with me, you know? And I think many people today, they live in an urban environment, so they never see the stars. And I think that will shape them to something, and I don’t believe in that, you know? I believe in The stars and to get, because the stars give you perspective of things that are important.
I think it’s important to also see the horizon, you know, to live in an environment like that. So for me, in a way, something happens inside of me when I live close to that. So that’s why I try to live close to that.
Ross Kenyon: So you stripped out everything that you viewed as unnecessary, but as time goes on, you became married, started a family, and you’ve grown out from your little outpost of solitude into having a family in the wilderness. How did this happen in your mind or how did you know you were ready to start adding things back in?
Markus Torgeby: But, you know, when I met Frida, it was like a punch in the stomach. So I just know that Frida, she is the one. So I just stayed with her. And of course, in the beginning, it was a big change for me because I was used to just be by myself out in the forest, out in the darkness and in the cold. And it was also a big change for Frida to, like, To live with a guy like me. But so it took some years to find a balance between those two worlds.
So in the beginning, it was a little bit tough, of course. But now I think we have like a good mixture between the simple life and the more hectic life.
Ross Kenyon: Are you close enough to others that you’re able to sustain friendships?
Markus Torgeby: Yes. I have a black belt in that, you know, because relations are really, really important. So I try to also put in a lot of energy in relations because it’s important. That’s a good thing with me. I am very loyal. So when I like someone or something, I try to stay with that.
Ross Kenyon: Do you maintain those relationships with social media or do you stay far away?
Markus Torgeby: You know, I don’t have any telephone. Now we do this over the internet, but it’s my wife that fixes things like that because, you know, I don’t have the... I suck into it, so it’s easier for me to not have it. That’s my way. Frida, she can have more thoughts in the head than she have... She’s more balanced. You know, me, I’m more black and white. So it’s easier for me to don’t have any telephone, things like that, because otherwise it will become crazy in the head and everything will fall apart.
So, yeah, that’s my way to fix it.
Ross Kenyon: And maybe this sounds a little bit odd, but yeah, I think you must find your own way.
Markus Torgeby: And Frida and me, we have like a good mix between this.
Ross Kenyon: I think so. And I think it’s a good question to know how much technology is appropriate for your own mental health. I always liken back to Wendell Berry when computers became possible for personal ownership, just said, I’m not going to do this and never has. There are some serious downsides to it, right? You’re much less connected. Things move a lot slower. But I think he prefers the pace that he set and he has made a choice about, uh, It’s a little bit Amish, right? You just said, like, at this point, no further.
It sounds like maybe you’ve done something kind of similar.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah, I think so. Because, you know, I want my head to be healthy. And I think it’s not easy if you have too much information around you. I think today that’s a big problem. And I think it’s important to put time in, so you just can be with your own thoughts. And so maybe that’s why I try to stay away from too much telephone and too much internet and too much Netflix and too much television series and things like that, because it will not help me. It just, yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Do you spend much time reading or do you consider books in a similar category?
Markus Torgeby: No, not now. So when I lived out in the forest for those four years, I read two books. So that was enough. But I read them very, very carefully. But now I read one or two books every month. But more as a feeling when I read, it’s a better feeling inside. If I compare that to watch a series on Netflix, you know, I feel more calm. I have like a big issue and I have so much energy in the head. So I must take care of myself. And I think I do that when I live a little bit off the grid and a little bit more back to nature and back to basic.
You know, every morning before I woke up my kids, I must start a fire in the chimney. And maybe that sounds... Why do you do things like that? It’s not easier to just have like a radiator, but I like the feeling when it’s a little bit cold in the house and then I start the fire. And then when the kids come down from the rooms, they sit close to the fire. I think that do something with them and that do something also something with me when they, oh, you know, I saw Life is not just like a straight highway.
That’s not the way it should be. I think it’s more up and down. And I think we should live our life more like that, more like a year in nature. Sometimes it’s cold. Sometimes it’s warm and that’s the way it should be. Don’t be afraid of freezing or if you are a little bit hungry, that’s okay. Because when you eat, you feel full and then you’re happy, you know, simple as that.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, there’s some wisdom to that. I like that. I have a sort of banal suburban example, but I have one friend in particular, and oftentimes it comes up that we really miss coming to consciousness in the 90s. And we were sort of the first generation that the internet, I remember like 56k modems booting up and making those horrible sounds. And it wasn’t like everything is streaming and built for the internet. I remember going to Blockbuster. I remember having CDs and cassette tapes and video game cartridges and stuff like that. And I missed the sort of physicality and that everything wasn’t seamlessly plugged into a digital environment.
And it was sort of clunky, even though it’s objectively worse, I think, in some ways. I think trying to explain why this is good to someone who didn’t experience it won’t make sense. And it might just be nostalgia. But I sort of miss when things were a little bit less integrated in that way. Does that make sense?
Markus Torgeby: Yes, perfectly. I think things that are hands-on, you know, that’s good. To feel something. So those kind of things have shaped us humans for thousands of years. And I think it’s important to... Have a connection with that. Even if we don’t need that for our survival today, you know, today you can work as a journalist, you can just write things and you can live in that. But I think still it’s important to just use your hands, something to feel it with the body, to feel it in the skin.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think so too. And I think there’s a tendency to make everything about software and digital, or you can imagine an app where it’s like, You know how in the old days you used to have to get together with people and love them and all their difficulties? What if we could simulate a relationship with none of the bad parts? You’d be like, that’s clearly not the point of it, right? I feel like we do head that direction and I think it misses something really core about life that is tragic.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Maybe you’re immune from that. Maybe I’m just closer to Silicon Valley here. And so I see more of that app stuff that you don’t even see. But some of it is like, why don’t you just join the Elks Lodge in your neighborhood or join a bowling league? Why do you have to have some sort of like weird esoteric app for sorting in this kind of way?
Markus Torgeby: Yeah. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Like, do you know your neighbors and their names and their kids and stuff? Go ahead. Yeah.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah, no, but I am not immune, but you know, I try to... You know, I was born and raised on an island outside the west coast of Sweden. My whole family were fishermen. So to live a life close to the environment that has always been close, you know, and I think that has shaped me and I can see the positive things with it. And I can also see that sometimes it’s really, really tough. But today, when the kids grow up, the things that are normal today for 50 years ago, it would be crazy.
And what will all this tech thing do with the kids? That’s an interesting question. I try to teach my kids the things outside because the internet things, so much in the school and things like that are focusing on that. So the nature and things, it becomes not so common today. Yeah, I don’t think it is.
Ross Kenyon: Well, have you thought about to what degree your children will use smartphones and how to... Manage access to things like that.
Markus Torgeby: But, you know, I try to, me and my wife, we try to help our kids so they can ask themselves questions, you know. So sometimes it’s tough, but, you know, me as a parent, when they are younger, I just decide. But when they grow older, so they must also understand what’s good for me. So I think it’s important to... Teach them so they can ask themselves questions, you know, is this good for me? If it’s not, don’t do it, you know, and sometimes they will fail. But in the long term, I think it’s really important because they must live their own life and they must find their own way.
And that is not always easy. And I think as parents, it’s so easy to just go and try to focus or teach them too hard. You know, I think sometimes you must just take a step back to just have the, what do you say? This language is so hard, you know, you know, I was living in the forest for many years and I quit school quite young. So talking English is really, really tough. So I get frustrated because the words, see, stocks like glow in the head.
Ross Kenyon: So I agree. I think that’s a great thing for parents to try to teach their kids. They clearly need to know. Hey, this thing that I’m doing is not good for me. And this is not a new question. I think there’s a Greek term called akrasia that’s from the Platonic Dialogues and probably earlier. But it’s that if you know what the good is, why do you choose anything other than the good? And for instance, I find myself on Facebook quite often. People listening to the show. No, I do not think social media is in general so great for the way our minds work.
And yet I click on it over and over again. I know that’s designed to draw you in, but I know it’s not good for me. I know it oftentimes makes me a little bit aggravated. And yet I keep going back to it. I don’t even really know why. So maybe my parents didn’t adequately instill in me what you are trying to instill into your children. Maybe that’s what’s happening.
Markus Torgeby: But, you know, I think Facebook and things like that. So, you know, it’s smart people that develop things like that. So it’s something in the head. And I think it’s not easy for me. I realized that I cannot handle it. So it’s easier to just don’t have Facebook. That’s my solution. Maybe not the best solution, but for me, it’s the best solution. My wife, for her, Facebook is no problem. Maybe she goes on Facebook once a week and that’s okay with her, but not more. But if I have Facebook... It’s become my, you know, my God.
It becomes too much. So I think just that’s just my head that works like that. And maybe you are similar. So, yeah. Sometimes I think, how does that feel in the body? If it’s okay, okay feeling continue. If it’s not okay, take it away. And then you just do it. You know, go out for a run instead. Then you come home and you are a little bit hungry and then you eat some porridge and then life is perfect. It’s easy like that. It’s easy like that. Yeah. Yes. Maybe it is that easy.
But, you know, if you always have a candy in the pocket. You will eat it. So why do you buy candy? So don’t buy it or then you decide, okay, every Saturday I buy some candy and then you eat candy for $2 and then it’s okay. Or maybe you must have some rules for yourself. I don’t know. But for me, it’s easier to... I don’t eat it because if I start, I have this, you say, addicted. I have that kind of personality. So it’s easier to not have it.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, it makes sense. I think a lot of people find it’s easier to... Totally abstain from something rather than saying, oh, on this day I can do this, on this other day, oh, I can have one cigarette here, one candy bar here. Before they know it, they’re buying packs of cigarettes or whole bags of candy.
Markus Torgeby: The thing with social media, Facebook and things like that, I think people have this feeling of a fear of missing out. But I think the sooner you realize that 99. 9% of all the things in the world you will miss. And that’s okay. So focus on the... Your one percent, you know, so I think it’s important to find what is my percent. And when you find that life become more easy, you know, and I think under the four years I lived out in the forests, I find my one percent. So I try to stay with that, you know.
All the 99% will just distract me. So I just take that away and focus on my thing and my family’s things and things like that.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I imagine people listening might wonder, I’m sure they can make this link to climate change if they hadn’t already. And maybe we can spell it out for you, but... When I think about climate change, oftentimes it feels very zoomed out to me where we’re talking about markets or policy and things that are either at the national or international level, global level, and your world seems extremely small. I know that sounds bad, but actually- You’re like so zoomed in on your life and your family. And I’m wondering what wisdom we might be able to get for that and thinking about climate change broadly.
Markus Torgeby: My wife’s grandmother, Karin, one month ago, she celebrated her 100th birthday. Yes. And, you know, many of those questions we talk about today with the climate and things like that and the environment for Karin. It’s no big deal because Karin, when she goes to the store to buy some food, she don’t throw anything away. If she buy some clothes, she wear them until they are worn out. And when they are worn out, she do something with the clothes. Maybe she do some, I don’t know, some pillow or something. And if she buy a car...
She used the car until it’s over, until the end. And I think to live a life like that, I think it will become more richer, because then you don’t focus so much on the neighbor and things like that.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think I used to view living that way as a sacrifice, and thus it seemed a little bit irrational to me. But I’ve also... Experienced more of that myself the last couple of years and read things like your book or Peter Kalmas’ book. And it talks about what a joy it is to give up a lot of that stuff and to focus on reusing and being conservative in that way as being a source of great pleasure as opposed to just being like, oh, I can’t buy this next thing. You’re like, whatever, we’ll make our own fun.
We’ll redesign something that we have and be creative. And that’s even more pleasurable than just buying something on Amazon.
Markus Torgeby: Yes. But what’s your memory from last summer?
Ross Kenyon: Oh, God. Just the pandemic and being inside and walking my dog.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah, okay. But for me, my biggest memory were when me and my two older kids, we just took the trainers on and we run over the hills, maybe five kilometers to like a small river. And it was maybe 16 degrees in the river. So not... So warm, but not so cold. And then we just float with the river for three kilometers. And then we just ran back home a little bit frozen, a little bit hungry. And, you know, a big smile on the face. It cost nothing, just a little bit of heartbeats, you know.
And I think to remind people Tell yourself about those kinds of things. It’s important because those kinds of memory, I think you will bring them for the rest of your life. So you don’t remember that you buy a new bicycle or some kind of new training shoes last summer. Don’t focus on that. Focus on nature because those kind of memory, it will stuck in the head like it glow. And I think that is the best to try to fill yourself with memory. That is a rich life, I think. So I try to focus on that.
Ross Kenyon: To try to fill yourself with memory? Yeah. That’s a beautiful sentence.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah, I try to teach my kids that also. I think that’s my ambition with them, to just fill them up. And I think when I am gone, I think they will remember the summer when the father took them to the river and when they swim under the water or did a high jump from a high cliff or do a long cross-country ski. Tour around the mountains. They will not remember that I buy a new bicycle and things like that. And I know every people know this, but still they focus on more and more things.
And if you have more and more things, you must put more and more energy in that. And then you will miss a lot of good memories out in nature.
Ross Kenyon: That’s certainly true. I find the amount of labor I spend Processing cardboard boxes that we’ve received at the home in order to be recycled and unpacking things. And then once I have them, I’m like, oh, well, the vacuum needs a new filter. This needs that. Oh, I have to re-season our carbon steel pans. I have to do this. And it’s just sort of an endless litany of chores that I have adopted because I chose to own all these things. And there’s a simpler way, but dang it. I talk a good game about this, Marcus, but...
I don’t really feel like I’ve been able to extricate myself from this pattern. If someone’s listening and they feel inspired by this and they want to imitate you some, how can they start? Me too. How do I start? Because I like it, but I can’t do it.
Markus Torgeby: No, but start a little bit slow. Don’t push it too hard. I think if you... Build a relation with nature. I think nature will teach you something. So I think that is important, you know, and to if you’re going to have a relationship, you must put some time into it. So just open up the door and go out maybe for two hours every week and you start with that and then you go do it more and more and more. You know, so one thing to do can be to just sleep Outside one time every month.
So then you will sleep outside 12 times for one year. And so the second year, maybe you take, you know, you just do it more and more. So don’t push too much in the beginning. And then you just feel, is this something for me? And I think you will appreciate it. But you must put some time into it. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: What do you think someone would learn by sleeping outside once a month for a year?
Markus Torgeby: Yes. Okay, if you live in a city, maybe you have a friend that lives on the countryside. Visit that guy or that girl. And then you lay outside the house, you know? Maybe try to go to a place where you can see the stars, you know. And I know that when you’re looking up at stars, that will do something with your head, you know. I think you will think different thoughts. If you compare that room to just ordinary sleeping room, as you know, under the stars will come. I like to swim, but if you compare swimming inside a pool or swimming in the ocean, I like to swim in the ocean much more because sometimes I see fish and I see a fishing boat and I see the birds and things like that.
It becomes a bigger experience when you swim outside in the ocean. And it’s the same thing if you’re going to sleep on the open sky. So the sleep will become bigger. So, and you know, you always, so sleep, you do that every day. So learn something.
Ross Kenyon: Do you also like the related tradition? Maybe that’s not the right way to say it. Do you also like this concept I’ve heard floating around recently called forced bathing? Do you see yourself as part of that?
Markus Torgeby: No, no. But I have heard that word, but I think it’s a good thing to hug a tree. Absolutely. And maybe it’s a similar thing that I do, but I know that if you are outside in the forest, It’s a good feeling, you know, something will happen. So just to be there. Yeah, I like it. So I try to do it every day and I do it every day. You know, when I am around Sweden and do some public speech, I always have my sleeping bag with me. And so after my job is done, I go to the closest village and just take one night there.
And then in the morning I take the train back home. So, yeah. And then maybe in the night I hear some animals and things like that, you know, and it’s a big experience. If I compare that to a room in a hotel, you know, the forest, it’s become, that night become much bigger. I think I will learn something. Yeah, I think so too.
Ross Kenyon: It’s an interesting approach. I’ve gone to a lot of conferences. I’ve never gone camping while at a conference. Maybe I should. Yes, of course.
Markus Torgeby: You know, but in Sweden, I have never been in America, but in Sweden, you know, close to every city in Sweden, it’s always a big forest. So you don’t need permission for the landlord to do it. You can just take your sleeping bag and go out in the forest and nothing will ever happen to you. No dangerous animals. It’s no... Snakes and things like that. And, you know, people, they don’t walk in the forest in the night, so you can just be safe.
Ross Kenyon: And yeah, you know, I like that.
Markus Torgeby: So I start a small fire and sit there and think a little bit and then, you know, go to sleep and see the stars. And maybe it comes a little bit rain, a little bit, not so good feeling. But then I woke up in the morning and yeah, you know, it’s a good feeling again. And then, yeah. Back to the train and come back home to my family. I like that. So I try to do that every time I am away.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, it’s fun to build a little discomfort in given that we expect everything to be seamless, comfortable, etc. Americans have a very strong back to the land tradition. We most commonly associate it with Henry David Thoreau and Walden. But you also have everything that the hippies did in the 60s and 70s and Christopher McCandless from Into the Wild. It’s sort of a part of our culture to go West, young man, frontier. But do your countrymen and women view you as a little bit of a nut or do they appreciate what you’re up to?
Markus Torgeby: I think they appreciate because maybe in the beginning, some people didn’t understand what I tried to do, but when they met me and we talked a little bit, so then they understand. So then they just left me alone. And I think, you know, I’m just a regular guy and the thoughts and the problems I have, they can relate to that. We can talk about that and then I try to talk about my way of finding my own way and they can understand that. I feel that people want to understand me and I feel that people like me and they don’t think that I am a crazy guy.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, that’s good. I’m glad to hear it.
Markus Torgeby: But of course, you know, when you lived four years just by yourself, also four and a half years in the forest, of course, there will be some rumors, of course, but it’s okay. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: I can only imagine. Yeah. Well, actually, I have a thought about your book, and I’m wondering if you can confirm it or not. But... It strikes me as incomplete, but in a good way. Whereas if there was an American version of this book, it would almost be A comprehensive how-to guide of how to do it. And while you do have some tutorials inside of the book, it’s almost poetically truncated in the sense that there’s pictures, there’s stuff about how to start a fire, what kind of fabrics you like, what kind of food you like.
It isn’t all the information you seemingly need to live outside for four and a half years. There’s a lot of knowledge that would presumably take. But it isn’t the point to be comprehensive. And it being interjections of visual media and pictures, it’s more artistic than it is a how-to guide. Is that right?
Markus Torgeby: Yes. So 100%. I just want to open up. I will not be so much as a teacher. I just want to... Open up that door so people just go out and find by themselves because it’s so easy to tell people what they should do. And a lot of people do that. I don’t like that. If you live outdoors for four years, of course, I can. As you know, the craftsmanship, I can that. I don’t want to write about it. For me, it’s more interesting the things that are between the lines, between the words.
I don’t want to give away too much information. It’s more a feeling. I want to open up.
Ross Kenyon: There’s an American version of it that’s just, here’s all the gear that you have to buy. It’s a couple thousand dollars and you’re just like, yeah, just take a sleeping bag and you’ll be fine.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah. So, but yeah, I hear what you say and people sometimes they ask me just about that. Why, Marcus, why don’t you write more with more information? But it’s just that are the thing, you know, I don’t want to write with more information. I want to keep it a little bit high in the dark. It is more about a feeling. I want to, you know, Like a sweet candy thing out in the forest. I want just people to get longing for it, you know. And it’s so easy to just say what people should do.
And in social media, it’s always like that. Do like this or do like that. And, you know, no, that’s not my way.
Ross Kenyon: It seems like if the point is to go have firsthand experience, if you had a guide that told you literally everything you needed to know and would learn, it would somehow detract from your personal experience.
Markus Torgeby: In Sweden, I have some kind of followers over the years, people that take contact with me and they will try to live outside for a year or so. And they seek a lot of information and I don’t give them any information because I want them to feel it. From the beginning, from the start, I want them to learn the hard way, because if they learn the hard way, the knowledge will become much bigger in the heart. And it’s the easiest thing for me to just say to them, okay, do like this, then it will be okay, but I don’t do it.
It’s always like this. So that’s my thing. I don’t want to be too clear about things. I want to be a little bit more secret because then they will ask themselves the right questions and then they will become a bigger person. So in the long term, it’s the best decision, you know, for me and for them. But in the beginning for them, they thought, OK, come on, Marcus, give me something. You know, I don’t give it away. I just try to give them a good feeling. And then I know that good feeling will help them.
You know? Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: It sounds like your parenting philosophy too.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah, I think so. I just try to... What do you say? You know, they have the possibility just... Help them a little bit, but not too much. Then they find a way, and then they become really, really strong. Back in the days, I was quite a good runner in Sweden, and I trained some people, and as a trainer, it’s really, really easy to just come to the training, and they just tell them, okay, today you’re going to do this and that, and you’re going to run in this speed, and things like that.
But I think if you... The ambition, if you work as a coach, is to be unemployed. The ambition is to teach them so the athletes can take the right decisions for themselves. Do you understand what I try to say here?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I believe so. They’re looking for someone to give them all the answers and that’s really not what it’s about.
Markus Torgeby: No, because they must just ask them the question by themselves. And then after, maybe sometimes they will find a way and then they will become a much better athlete. That makes sense.
Ross Kenyon: And just to clarify too, so you spent four, four and a half years out in the wilderness by yourself, but now it seems like you’ve split the difference where you’re still living somewhat rurally with a family, but you’re also not super far from others, right?
Markus Torgeby: Yeah. Yeah. We have like two Swedish kilometers to the closest neighbor. So yeah. Oh, okay. So if something happens, I can run to them in 10 minutes. Yeah. I live close by the area where I live in the forest. So I lived in different, what you say, different spots on those four years. I had the teepee in four different areas, but it were... Quite close to the area living now, maybe two or three kilometers. So it’s in the same area living now. So the forest I run and lived in for 20 years, it’s the same woods I live in now.
Ross Kenyon: Do you think this rural living is maybe something that would be recommended to a listener rather than spending their own four years out in the forest by themselves? Do you think this is a good way to get a lot of the benefit of what you’re talking about?
Markus Torgeby: Yeah, I think so. I think so. But if you feel lost in the head, I think it can be a good way to put yourself in a really hardcore situation out in the nature. I think that can help you. If you also are in Sweden today, people get burned out in the head. It’s just too much. They get really, really tired and cannot go to work for maybe one year. But if they have... If they are sick like that, I think they will come back to life faster if they just put themselves out in the forest.
If you take one year, if you live a normal life, I think it will... Take maybe just three months if you are just by yourself in the forest. But those three months will be really, really tough, of course. But I think you will be back faster, I think. Because, yeah, you know, when everything is calm around you, after a couple of weeks, you will find your own thoughts. And yeah, and then you will find a way, I think anyway. And then if you are a little bit sad and then you are freezing like hell, then you don’t focus on the sad feeling.
You start to focus on getting warm and then you start to fire and then you just feel the heat over the face and then you feel that, okay, life is not so hard. It’s probably pretty okay. I sounds like a crazy guy. I hear it, but yeah. I believe in nature.
Ross Kenyon: My laughs are not intended to be mockery. I’m tickled by your comments. I think they’re interesting and worthy. Well, we should start wrapping it up, Marcus. Obviously, if someone wants to support your work and the work of your wife, Frida, Under the Open Skies, Finding Peace and Health in Nature, they can buy this book.
Markus Torgeby: Yeah. Yes. I’m really proud of that book. It’s from my heart. So yeah, it’s a good book.
Ross Kenyon: I like it too. I think it’s well designed and I like the experience of reading it. It’s as I described it, it’s more impressionistic and poetic than strictly straightforward. Yeah. I really like that about it. I think that makes it a really beautiful experience.
Markus Torgeby: Thank you. Thank you. Makes me very happy to hear that.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. And links are in the show notes if you’d like to learn more or find a link where you could buy or investigate further if you’d like. And yeah. Any final thoughts, Marcus, or you feel like we covered it all?
Markus Torgeby: Yeah, everything is just covered. But if you want to learn more, just buy the book and then maybe that can help you to open the door out to nature. I think so in a way. That was my ambition with the book in a way.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think so too. I think you were successful at that. Yeah, go check out the book. And thanks for being on the show, Marcus.
Markus Torgeby: Thank you. Thank you. Bye.
