Standing In The Rain
It was midday, but the thick cumulus clouds made noon look more like dusk, with its low light and muted colors. Work was busy, and I just wanted to get away from the computer. So, when lunchtime arrived, instead of heading toward the refrigerator, I slipped on my boots and headed out the front door and into the woods.
I arrived at a deer blind that is set up along a tree line bordering a large crop field. Last year, this field was full of tobacco; this year, endless rows of soybeans grow, enticing deer to enjoy an easy, nutritious snack. The deer often traverse this area, and there are trail cameras set up to track their movements. Today, however, I was not tracking wildlife or taking photographs. I just needed some time away from my computer, away from the task lists, meetings, and deadlines that were spilling over.
I unzipped the blind, entered, and sat down on a small chair. As I was closing the zipper, the wind gusted, releasing dozens of dead pine needles that hit the top of the blind, making soft, popping sounds. I moved the chair closer to the edge of the blind and adjusted the windows so I could see outside.
Closing my eyes, I slowed my breathing and listened to the wind rustle and stir. A few minutes lapsed, and the light pitter patter of raindrops began sounding, creating slow drips on the fabric of the blind. Looking up through the opening in the blind, behind the trunk of an old twisted pine, I made out the hindquarters of a deer standing still on the closest edge of the field. The rain picked up and the light drips turned into loud thuds. I looked out again and saw two deer in the field, nibbling soybean pods off the plants. They didn’t seem to mind the rain.
The deer just stood there eating, ignoring the precipitation falling all around.
As the rain’s intensity increased, more deer gathered in the center of the open field. Water was now entering the blind through the windows as the deer fed in the field, completely oblivious to the hard rain. I sat in the blind, wiping the splashing water from my eyes, immersed in the moment, staring out into the field where about eight deer had gathered.
I studied the deer’s peculiar behavior, wondering why they stood out in the open and subjected themselves to the frigid rain, completely unprotected. The tree line was only about a hundred meters away, where a thick forest canopy could provide considerable protection against the elements. While it wouldn’t completely block out all the rain, the forest could block much of the wind and water, providing substantially more warmth and comfort. The small herd, still standing in the middle of the field, had formed a tight circle with each deer feeding, facing a different direction.
The rain continued to pour, and I wondered why the deer, who were familiar with the forest, exhibited behavior that, to my human brain, seemed illogical. To me, the forest represented a place of protection from the elements, while the open field left one exposed. Why would the deer behave this way?
Since moving to the woods, I have become a committed student of Mother Nature. In doing so, I have learned that when something in nature makes little sense, then the most likely reason is that I am missing something.
In all my observations, nature has consistently shown its genius, and is perhaps the highest intelligence in the universe, as we know it.
Because animals developed to become more proficient at surviving in their given environment, I often ask, “Why would this behavior have evolved?” What benefit or fitness did it provide the deer to shun the comfort of the forest and brave the wind and rain and cold out in the open? The answer immediately became clear. The field was only unprotected in my human mind, because, to me, the only threat was the weather. My concern amounted to mild problems like inconvenience and physical discomfort.
The more I thought about the situation, the clearer the deer’s behavior became. In the downpour, the rain was deafening; it was very hard to hear. The deluge also made it hard to see very far, with visibility diminished by the falling sheets of water. The pouring rain also made it difficult to detect scent, something deer rely on heavily to avert danger. Deer hunters have to be vigilant of any scent they carry with them into the woods, washing their clothes with special detergents and spraying themselves with odor eliminators to avoid alerting their prey.
With their three primary senses significantly hindered, the deer had likely learned that being inside the forest, under these specific conditions, was dangerous, since predators could avoid detection and approach or hide in close proximity. However, the deer increased their chances of detecting predators since the preying animal would have to expose itself when entering the large open field. The deer were avoiding the comfort of the forest, because it was the safest thing to do. They intuitively understood, through centuries of learned behavior, that the larger goal of safety always overrides momentary comfort and convenience.
As the rain continued to pour, I continued to sit inside the blind and think. I pondered how small decisions I made often conflicted with my larger goals.
The present moment seems (and is) more real than a future that has not yet presented itself or a past that has already come and gone. While this seems obvious, we can be oblivious to how this adversely affects our behavior.
We all have goals we’d like to achieve, but these ideas are mainly just that: ideas. They are mere thoughts that live in a world of imagined possibilities, and because of this, our goals can feel distant and intangible. The present moment, however, offers immediate and tangible rewards. We can do something right now that will bring immediate satisfaction or comfort. It becomes easy to view a tangible reward as a more important resource than the idea of a better future. In the heat of the moment, we seem to rate accessibility a higher priority than some future reward. Nature’s lesson is that we must develop an ability to recognize this phenomenon so that we can rebrand many of our present moment decisions for what they are: shortsightedness.
Evolutionarily speaking, this all makes sense. Our early survival likely required us to seize immediate opportunities for gathering resources that were right in front of our noses. Once our survivability rate increased, however, we made longer-term plans that would bring greater benefits. And in order to achieve these goals, we had to learn to change the nature of the decisions we made in the present moment. It’s easy to see how these changes ran counterintuitive to our evolving brains. Apparently, discarding immediate rewards in order to experience some bigger, future gain is still a hard task for many modern humans, including me.
The deer, standing in the rain, were teaching me something important about my existence. We shouldn’t be so quick to seek comfort and convenience, and we should always consider how our immediate decisions affect our larger, more important goals. While we should never be afraid to embrace certain types of comfort, we should remember that discomfort and inconvenience can be evidence that we are moving towards an end goal. Sometimes, we have to brave the metaphorical weather and stand out in the wet and cold, so that we can preserve our ability to achieve our most important endeavors.