On Being a Naturalist
I've been thinking a lot about identity lately. Historically I've never felt the need to identify with any particular thing whether it be a hobby, a sport, a career, or even a religion. I'm interested in far too many things and find it hard to single out any particular one, and the cynical part of me found it hard to relate to anyone who defined themselves by their career.
Ironically, I've struggled with bouts of depression, anxiety, and an occasional lack of interest in Life for much of my life. As I get older, I'm realizing that those two things are very probably correlated.
Humans evolved in groups and have an innate desire to be a part of a clan or tribe. That's how we survived; that's how we got here. We need to be a part of something.
We also evolved language, writing, and speech, which uses words to symbolize concepts as well as physical things in the world. For efficiency purposes, these words are generalizations. Basically, they're labels, and those labels not only help us communicate, but they also make us feel like we understand and have some type of handle on our world. So, we've also evolved to categorize and name things.
Bottom line: To feel like we know our place in life, we need to feel like a part of something, and we need to know what that something is called. That's identity. And it turns out, that's more important than I ever imagined.
Religions perfectly exemplify the human need for identity and the power it can have on people. It's why religions have been so successful and enduring: they not only provide "answers" to life's biggest questions (removing scary uncertainty), they also provide a group to belong to, and rules and guidance on how to live... providing a one-stop shop for all your identity needs!
But us "nones" (non-religious people), we're left high and dry. We have to find - or create - our own identity.
I tried for the longest time to convince myself I didn't need a label, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that I do; life would be so much easier and enjoyable if I just had something to ground myself with. Thinking back on my life, I tried to pick out the most perennial aspect... the thing that's been there from the beginning and still resonates today.
I've always been curious, loved science, and exploring. But I'm not a scientist nor an explorer. Amateur, maybe, but not in the genuine sense. After much soul-searching and researching, I finally settled on the word, 'naturalist.' It somehow covers all my eclectic bases. (If you squint, anyway.)
What is a Naturalist?
A naturalist is someone who finds the natural world — its patterns, creatures, forces, and mysteries — to be the primary text worth reading. But it's more than a hobby or profession. It's a way of seeing.What a naturalist does
At its most basic, a naturalist observes. They go outside and pay attention — to birds, insects, plants, weather, soil, stars, seasons. They keep notes. They draw connections. They ask why and how with genuine hunger. Historically, naturalists were the scientists before science had departments: people like Darwin, Thoreau, John Muir, and Gilbert White of Selborne, who simply watched the world carefully and wrote down what they found.
Who a naturalist is
A naturalist is someone for whom the universe doesn't feel like a backdrop — it feels like a conversation. They are generalists by nature, comfortable not knowing everything but compelled to keep learning. They tend to be patient, because nature rewards patience. They're often solitary in the field but generous with what they discover. They feel kinship with living things without sentimentalizing them. They can hold awe and scientific rigor in the same hand.
What it means to be a naturalist
This is the deeper question. To be a naturalist is a philosophical stance as much as a practice. It means:
- The world is enough.
No supernatural scaffolding is needed to find it sacred. A lichen on a rock, a murmuration of starlings, the fact that you are made of stardust — these are sufficient for wonder.
- Attention is a moral act.
To really look at something is to respect it. Most people move through the world without seeing it. The naturalist slows down on purpose.
- You are not separate.
A naturalist doesn't stand above nature observing it like a museum exhibit. They understand themselves as part of it — subject to the same forces, made of the same materials, bound by the same cycles.
- Mortality is not the enemy.
Because naturalists understand cycles — growth, decay, death, renewal — they tend to make a kind of peace with impermanence. The oak tree doesn't mourn the acorn.
Is being a Naturalist "enough"?
Most people struggle at some point in their lives with purpose, meaning, and their life's worth. I know I've wrestled with my personal relevence probably more than most. Am I changing the world in any meaningful way? Do I matter?
Maybe the problem is with society's idea of worth and value...
The World has a very narrow definition of meaning: scale, visibility, measurable impact, legacy with a capital L. By that metric, almost every human who ever lived was irrelevant. And that's an absurd way to measure a life.
The naturalist tradition — the real one, not the Instagram version — has never been about changing the world. It's been about witnessing it. Thoreau didn't drain Walden Pond and build something on it. He sat beside it and wrote down what he saw. That act of faithful attention has outlasted most of the "world-changers" of his era.
And here's the thing people sometimes forget: the people who slow down, pay attention, keep journals, raise daughters who see the world thoughtfully — they are changing the world. Just quietly. At a scale the metrics can't capture.
The expectation that a life needs to be legible to strangers to matter — that's the poison. We don't owe the world a résumé of our significance.
Desiderata says. "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars." Not a child of the universe provided you accomplish enough. Just — unconditionally — a child of it.
That's not consolation. That's cosmology.
Whether you're a stock exchange broker or cattle herder or health care advocate or dress designer or the person who simply greets people with a smile every morning, you're enough! And the World needs you.
What's in a name?
After all this identity chasing, I realized I didn't even know the etymology of my own name; where it comes from or what it means. Boy, was I surprised when I found out...
The name Jeffrey is a variant of Geoffrey, which comes from the Old Germanic/Old French. It's a compound name with two elements:
The second part is fairly agreed upon — frid or fred, meaning peace.
The first part is where it gets interesting and slightly debated. It's either from gawia meaning territory or traveler, walah meaning stranger or pilgrim, or possibly god meaning — well, God.
So depending on the interpretation you get something like:
- "divine peace"
- "peaceful stranger"
- "pilgrim of peace"
- "peaceful traveler"
The most common interpretation tends toward something like "God's peace" or "peaceful ruler" — but the traveler/pilgrim reading is arguably more etymologically supportable and, honestly, more interesting, in my case anyway.
Given the activities I gravitate towards - running, exploring, wandering through the world with curiosity and wonder... and the deep value I place on calmness and peace, "peaceful traveler" feels almost eerily fitting.
Peaceful traveler. The naturalist who observes without interfering. Who moves through the world with curiosity and humility and wonder. Who runs solo marathons through nature not to compete but just to be in it. Who builds instruments to listen to the world rather than impose on it. Who spent a lifetime collecting fossils and watching stars and writing quietly in journals...
I don't consider myself a mystic or believer by any stretch, but maybe this isn't a coincidence. That's just... me; written into my name before I was even born.
So now I have two anchors:
Naturalist. What I am.
Peaceful traveler. How I move through the world.
Maybe the universe has been trying to tell me who I am for 44 years and now I'm finally listening. 🙂
2026-05-15