When the US philosopher Henry David
Thoreau took his year out to live off the
land in 1845, he lamented the swift rise of
modern communications, writing in Walden
of "pretty toys, which distract our attention
from serious things". To him, that meant
the newly invented telegraph machine; his
21st-century counterpart has smartphones
and the avalanche of social media to
contend with.
Ida Beate Loken, a 19-year-old Norwegian
student, has been living in a cave at the foot
of a mountain since last May, sleeping on a
bed of straw and sheepskin and collecting
rainwater to wash with and drink. Sitting
on a rock surveying a landscape bathed in
sunshine, Ms Loken does not look like she
misses the daily demands of Twitter,
Instagram and shopping malls.
"It does something completely different to
you than waking up in a bed, when you
don't want to get up and go to school," she
says in a video made by the local newspaper
Firda. "But waking up for a climb through
the scree is quite fun – you get a completely
different hiking experience and respect for
nature, and experience different birdsongs
around you."
Ms Loken was inspired to change her
lifestyle by a boyfriend who had previously
occupied her cave. She concedes that living
outside by choice is "pretty weird in the
society we live in now", but was still
shocked by the most common question
people ask when they find out about her
unusual abode: "Most people just wonder
how I charge my phone – I think that is
excellent proof of the society we live in and
how incredibly dependent we are on the
luxuries around us."
It's no paradise: the ceiling tends to crumble
away in her hands, a stray cat ate her
butter, and when it rains she has a slippery
and cold climb home after a day's studying
at the Sogn Agriculture School in Aurland
municipality. But she has no plans to
abandon her home under a boulder.
"Home is where your rump rests," she says,
quoting Pumbaa from The Lion King. Being
19, she takes her cue from Disney rather
than Thoreau, but her description of
eschewing consumerism for a life in the
great outdoors could easily have come from
his pages. "It's all about the gadgets we
own," she says. "I have found that I don't
even use half the things I own. I sent a car-
load of things home. And then another.
Even then, I found that I didn't use all the
remaining things."
But she is not entirely cut off from modern
technology. Ms Loken is a member of
Norway's Green Party, and needs some way
to communicate her message. While
Thoreau published Walden, Ms Loken has
Facebook, posting updates on issues such as
recycling and sustainable land use. She also
has worried relatives to placate, especially
after her mother saw the precarious
scramble over moss-covered rocks she has
to make each day. "She made me promise to
send her a text each night saying I'm alive,"
Ms Loken says, though quite how she keeps
her phone battery charged remains a
mystery.
