What I Learned By Watching A Campfire
Many people, myself included, enjoy looking at fire. Whether it’s a campfire or a fireplace, it’s weirdly relaxing. It beats TVs and phones. But why is that? Why do we enjoy it so much?
Watching A Campfire
I often find myself in front of a campfire. I love everything about the outdoors, except spiders. When it gets colder, you almost have to make a campfire. Personally, it’s the perfect season for a cozy evening in front of the fire. It’s also the perfect excuse to jump into your sleeping bag.
Cooking stew over the fire while drinking cowboy coffee is very different from making it in your kitchen. Not just the way you make it, but also the way it makes you feel. I could sit for hours staring at a campfire.
This time I began to wonder. I observed myself and how it made me feel. The whole process of finding the firewood, building a good base, and watching it light up is so relaxing. You start to get excited at the same time. The mind calms itself more and more as the fire grows. Every little part of stress in the body disappears. It’s amazing to observe. For just a couple of hours, you forget all the negative thoughts, you forget the worries. There’s something homely about sitting by a campfire.
If you think about it, there’s no room for ego. Without proper care, the fire dies. If it’s too windy, the fire dies. If it starts to rain, the fire dies. You have to make sure it survives. In return, you get a place to cook and keep yourself warm.
My body and mind were calm, my stomach full, and the cold kept its distance. I felt happy and calm. Maybe one could benefit from this feeling, I thought to myself. I dug a little deeper, did some research.
First, a quick history about the fire.
How fire affected us
Around some million years ago Homo erectus (I’m waiting until you’re done laughing) was burning with an idea. Mr. Erectus threw the blueprints for the wheel into the river and invented the fire instead. The best decision anyone could've ever made. With the fire going, humans would sit around it in the evening, mumbling about how to afford next month’s cave rent. At least the fire kept all the scary animals away, so they didn’t have to concern about that anymore. This also resulted in better sleep.
It became possible to get the very needed REM sleep, which in return developed the brain, and helped organize new information and skills — this is why getting enough sleep still is important. Other than getting good quality sleep, fire also had other benefits.
If you ask John Gowlett, a University of Liverpool archaeologist, he will tell you, that the extended period of light made us more active. Mr. Erectus and his friends would be awake 16 hours a day. This gave them a lot of time to enjoy their little hobbies like making tools and learn more new skills.
Our ancestors began to love social cohesion that happened by sitting around a campfire. Nothing beats a great evening with chess while snacking on saber-tooth legs. All these social gatherings helped develop the social brain.
There are side-effects from the invention of fire, though. We are no longer able to get enough calories from raw food. It has to be pre-digested in some way, such as blending it. Otherwise, the body will need to use more energy and calories to digest the food.
Richard Wrangham, professor of biological anthropology, thinks that our larger brains today are the result of our ancestors’ cooking. When Mr. Erectus put on the apron and made a delicious mammoth steak over the fire with a little salad of tree bark and berries on the side, it increased the calories in the food and reduced the calorie consumption by digestion. So, instead of using energy on digesting raw food, the metabolic energy was used to develop our brains, Wrangham suggests.
Even in these modern times, it’s still beneficial to watch a campfire. Not in the same way as back then, but it does have a psychological effect.
What are the benefits of watching a campfire?
When we focus on one thing, e.g. a campfire, we almost turn into zombies. The mind calms down. We just exist.
Think about the last time you sat around a campfire alone or with your friends. I bet there were moments when talking became redundant.
Empty shells with empty glaring eyes. You become one with your senses, one with this exact moment. This is commonly known as mindfulness.
Watching a campfire puts you in a meditative state, which benefits the brain’s health and development. Mindful meditation is known to help in treating mental disorders such as depression. And after watching a campfire for several hours, I can see how. You feel refreshed and ready to conquer the world.
One could say, our ancestors invented mindfulness. A million years would pass before it became popular. But thanks to them, our brains developed toward the modern human brain. In some way, unconsciously mindful meditation helped them learn to focus on solving future problems. I.e., creating tools that would help fight other humans or hunt animals.
You can use the same technique today. Think about when you take a shower. You let the mind wander, and suddenly your mind is crowded with ideas and answers at the most inconvenient time. Sometimes I’d wish I’d had a waterproof notebook.
Not only that, watching and listening to a campfire also helps to relax your body. It’s been proven to lower blood pressure by five percent. The more time you spend in front of a campfire, the more relaxed you’ll be.
Knowing all that, why wouldn’t you watch a campfire?
The fire inside us
It seems like our attraction to fire isn’t a coincidence. It has helped us in many different ways, such as providing warmth, food, and safety, through the last hundred-thousands years. It still helps us with keeping our minds and bodies healthy. And it’s all thanks to Mr. Erectus.
It’s no surprise our inner caveman shows up every time we make a campfire. The fire sits deep in our DNA.
If you listen closely, you can almost hear a little voice shouting: “Look… Fire! Me make fire!”
Still, I can’t help but wonder what the world would have looked like if we had never discovered the fire. But for now, I’ll lean back, throw a steak over the campfire, drink a cup of cowboy coffee and enjoy the sound of birdsong and crackling firewood.
Please, let me know how a campfire makes you feel.
