One can never know who one really is before escaping the lenses of culture, society, and the those around us. External influences create pressures, skewing the way we think, the way we feel, the values we hold, and even how we look.  It is not until we remove ourselves from our social and institutional contexts that we can ever hope to find the raw person that is our essential self.

The wilderness, with its primal reality, represents the best opportunity we have to experience ourselves before a blank canvas.  Stripped to concern only for our basic needs — food, water, and warmth — it is in the wilderness that we can listen for our internal voices and connect with where our attentions take us.

Seek out solitude regularly, even at the sacrifice of certain responsibilities demanded by life. Failure to occasionally take an accurate measure of who we are results in an inauthentic, unoriginal self.  Find the person you are by experiencing yourself uncorrupted.