It's really more about the freedom rather than the nudity

The term "freedom" is used in many different contexts - political freedom, personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom from constraints (political or otherwise) - and can mean different things to different people.  As well as an abstract or specific condition though, it's also a feeling: we can feel free, even though we might not be totally free in a strict sense. We can "feel" that we are free to do, say or think something, or free just to be. This is a precious, and necessary, feeling for humans to be able to enjoy from time to time.

Different things make people feel "free"; some feel free while trekking alone in the wilderness, others lying on a sandy beach in the sun, and some experience freedom on a long road trip, on a faraway holiday, or when they are immersed in creating an artwork. It's a feeling that we yearn for when we're not experiencing it, and are nourished by when we are. It is a feeling that often results when we have temporarily renounced our day-to-day responsibilities and have put our worries and obligations to one side for a while. What's interesting, though, is how we all arrive at this feeling of momentary freedom via different routes.

I am increasingly aware of more and more people naked hiking in the countryside, and I believe this is a powerful route to attaining a state of peace with ourselves and our surroundings, that feeling of freedom. Many naked hikers say that, for them, the beauty of naked hiking is exactly this; I know it is for me. It always happens: once I am a certain distance into a hike, there comes a moment when I involuntarily release a deep, long breath of contentment and feel totally relaxed. I know then that I have reached the point when I am fully at one with the moment, and when my worries are forgotten and I am at peace.

This is the power that the combination of nature and nudity has on me. Beyond that, it is the reason I love naked living so much - it makes me feel free. This feeling is brought about by the lack of constraints (clothes, social requirements, immediate obligations), the temporary suspension of tasks and responsibilities, and the context of the magnificent surroundings of nature (especially when there's an absolute absence of polluting factors - whether it's sound, visual, air, water or any other kind of pollution).

Of course, walking around with nothing on is not a universal cure for everyone's woes. I am perfectly aware that naked hiking will not make everyone feel free, that it won't have the same effect on everyone. In fact, it could quite possibly have the opposite on many people. My own, personal route to attaining a feeling of freedom is via nature and nakedness; other people's might be dancing to loud music into the small hours, getting engrossed in a good book or kitesurfing.

I am also aware that this brief parenthesis in the midst of the reality of everyday life is not real freedom as such; that it is merely a temporary respite from our daily duties that gives us the illusion of freedom. But if something makes you feel free, albeit for a short while, well then surely that's about all we can ask for. I wouldn't want to suggest this feeling of freedom is of the same importance as the freedom an oppressed person feels when liberated after years of persecution, but I think we humans probably need to feel some form of release in order to rest, recuperate, take stock of life and carry on.

No matter how much I consider it (and I have thought about it a lot), I have no easy explanation for why nudity and nature happen to be the causes for the feeling of freedom that I experience, as though my clothes were prison chains and the city was the prison. I know that I'm not the only one however: I have seen, talked to and heard about many others who express exactly the same idea. Maybe it was something that happened in our childhoods, maybe it's a common reaction to the impositions of society, maybe we were simply born that way, or maybe it's something primal in human make up... who knows? Whatever it is, it is what works for us.

Nudity and naked living is the route to my feeling of freedom; my particular route to achieving the peace that I, and most of us, long for. But while the nudity is important, as an expression of openness and authenticity (amongst other things), ultimately, it's the feeling of freedom, that feeling we always crave for, that's most important to my well-being.