Iris Murdoch on how to lose yourself in nature

Anxiety is the most frequently diagnosed mental health problem in the world today. The handful of psychiatric treatments for anxiety that nowadays dominate the field are well known. But it’s worth remembering that philosophy also has a long and illustrious history as a form of anti-anxiety therapy. As I argue in my new book, philosophers from all over the world have been thinking and writing about anxiety since time immemorial, long before it was officially catalogued as a psychological disorder. From Stoicism and Epicureanism in Greece to Confucianism in China, from Hindu and Buddhist sources to the European existentialists, philosophers have had plenty of therapeutic wisdom to share with their readers.

One more recent example can be found in the work of Irish-born novelist and philosopher, Iris Murdoch, who provides an insight about the management of our attention and mental energy from which we anxious sufferers stand to benefit. In her 1970 book, The Sovereignty of Good, Murdoch writes, “We are anxiety-ridden animals. Our minds are continually active, fabricating an anxious, usually self-preoccupied… veil which partially conceals the world.” Instead of letting our attention be dictated by what she calls our “fat relentless ego”, Murdoch thinks that we can achieve a modicum of relief from anxiety and inner turmoil by turning our attention outward, away from the self. This is an activity she calls unselfing. Here is a key passage:

I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important. And of course this is something which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care.

Unselfing is the attempt to turn off auto-pilot, to redirect the self-centered flow of thought and attention. We’re trying to detach from what Murdoch calls the “greedy organism of the self” which gives us a false, distorted picture of reality and perceive and engage with the world as it really is.

It’s interesting that Murdoch’s description of unselfing draws on the experience of spotting a bird —a “hovering kestrel”—outside her window. My sister, a biologist and avid birder, has told me that part of what she finds so captivating about bird-watching is a soothing reminder (that virtually always accompanies the activity) about the existence of an ancient and intricate world (elusive songs and sounds, vibrant colors, migration routes many thousands of years old, a world quite literally of the dinosaurs) to which human beings are normally more or less oblivious, and that, by deliberate focus of attention (early in the morning, tramping through the woods, crisp air in the lungs, binoculars dangling around the neck) one can get a brief glimpse of this world and share, to some small extent, in its business and happenings. This is what unselfing is all about. Not inattentiveness or mere daydreaming, but attention deliberately steered away from the self. Immersion in Bird World allows us to temporarily “lose ourselves”, to achieve some distance from the anxious self. A calming forgetfulness of self is stimulated. We’re no longer focused on the anxiety that had us in its grip just a little while earlier.

Murdoch’s account of unselfing helps us see that anxiety is a fundamentally inward-facing mental state. Anxiety focusses its sights on the direction of the self, and the self is where anxiety lives and thrives. This helps explain why time spent in nature provides comfort and peace to so many anxious sufferers. Directing attention towards the beauty of a mountain landscape, the mesmeric sounds of birds or rushing water nearby, the fresh odors of trees, the moist, healthy soil, allows us to temporarily lose track of ourselves. In such moments we achieve some distance from the self and we feel less anxious as a result. The same idea applies to all of the activities we know to be helpful for diminishing anxiety (meditation, listening to music, a few miles of running, and so many more). Whenever we catch ourselves feeling more peaceful and less anxious, there’s a good chance that achieving some distance from the self, whether knowingly or inadvertently, played an important role in bringing that happier state about.

Treatment for anxiety is everywhere we look. Beyond the usual therapies and medications on offer, our society seems also to have built up a vast anti-anxiety infrastructure. Health food stores selling “mood boosting” vitamins and dietary supplements. Weighted blankets and meditation apps. Essential oils and online Mindfulness training seminars. Adult coloring books, salt lamps, stress-relief toys, emotional support animals. An endless stream of self-help books. A million things to help us fall and stay asleep: melatonin pills, therapeutic pillows, soothing teas infused with valerian, white noise machines, CBD oil. And the list goes on. Whatever one thinks of this vast infrastructure, it’s clear that the imperative at the heart of Murdoch’s doctrine of unselfing — to “give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care”—is one that we anxious sufferers would do well to take seriously.

Featured image by Sydney Sims via Unsplash