On the Beach: Humankind At Its Best

Dad pulls up the car, unloads the folding chairs, the towels, the umbrellas, a Frisbee, an inflated ball, Mom and the kids pile out and they find a spot and set up on the beach, where they will spend the day, just hanging out. They may swim, sunbathe, play games, toss the Frisbee, read books or magazines, listen to their headphones, look at their smartphones or just do nothing but be on the beach. They don’t have to do anything else, they’re at the beach. That’s enough.

When you tell someone you spent the day at the beach, he doesn’t ask you what you did at the beach. Being at the beach is enough. It’s self explanatory. It requires no further justification.

This scene is playing out right now in thousands of beach locations around the world, practically anywhere the shore meets the sea in warm temperatures and bright sun. It is an eternally recurring scene. Human beings are drawn to the beach.

It’s universal, virtually the same everywhere, with some variations. It seems to be an inborn set of behaviors. No one is trained how to behave at the beach. You just pick it up. You just know.  

What a contrast from the workaday world! Cut to a glimpse of midtown Manhattan where people are scurrying frantically to and fro, rushing to appointments, grabbing a quick bite on the way so as not to slow the momentum of the workday activities, rushing, rushing, rushing, cars honking, revving their engines, an occasional shout erupting from an angry driver.

When I watch people at the beach I get the feeling I am seeing humanity in its natural state. When we contrast homo sapiens with other animals, we are usually thinking of the working world. What other animals have anything that compares to our office buildings and file cabinets, factories and traffic jams? But when we look at the leisure side, the contrast melts away.

People congregating on the beach are not so different from buffalo in Africa hanging around the watering hole. They’re just hanging out. Some go into the water to cool themselves, some sit under a tree. Mommies are taking care of their babies, which are smooth and new and still full of playful energy and enthusiasm for life. The herd stays loosely together, and when it moves, one or two venture off, then are followed by a few more and finally the bulk of the heard moves, leaving a few stragglers bringing up the rear.

A few years ago I went gorilla tracking in Rwanda, an experience that requires you to climb up the side of a mountain covered with dense, wet rainforest in search of families of gorillas. The guide knows roughly where the gorilla tribe can be found as they go about their daily migrations, but it still takes hours of trekking through dense jungle to find them.

After about two hours of trekking, mostly upward, we encountered a biologist who had just visited the gorilla family to check on a baby that had been born the previous day. The biologist told us that we were close. Sure enough, a few more minutes of trekking and we caught up to them. We came around a bend to a clearing and suddenly there they were right in front of us, a family of about 20 gorillas.

It was the oddest sensation. I don’t know what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t anything like what I experienced. It was jarring, a little disorienting and caused me to question my senses for a moment. The scene I encountered at first was just some furry heads poking up above the tall grasses on the steep mountainside in front of us.

The grasses were tall enough that only the heads were poking up above the grass at that first glance, so all we saw were the backs of their furry heads. They were completely nonchalant about our entrance to the scene. They had not even bothered to turn their heads to look at us as we approached. They certainly knew we were there, but they were unconcerned and just continued their activities.

And what were those activities? They were just hanging out. Some moms walked around with babies on their backs. Some were eating fruits or vegetables that grew in the area. They can eat almost anything, so food is abundant and never a problem. Some were lolling in the grass. They seemed to be just enjoying themselves, having a nice afternoon in the lovely mountain forest environment.

The gorillas are nomads. Every day the group travels to a new location where the food is fresh, so they never overgraze an area. They stay in one place for a day and then move along to another the next day. Every day the scene changes. I can’t imagine what was in their minds, but they sure seemed to be enjoying themselves.

And it must be noted that their way of life is sustainable. They could keep on doing that indefinitely and never hurt the environment that sustains them. I wish the same could be said for us humans.

As I thought about it and tried to make some sense of what I had seen, I realized that the gorillas, our close primate cousins who share at least 97 percent of our DNA, reminded me of people on holiday. Their behavior does not resemble human behavior in the workplace. In the workplace we are more like beavers building dams or ants or bees that live in highly complex, stratified societies. But when you compare the apes to people on the beach, the contrast is not nearly so great.

Scientific research can show us many reasons these beach days are good for us. The salt water is medicinal and cleansing. The sun on our skin generates vitamin D. The sand is an exfoliant for our skin, and walking on its gently yielding texture is good for the feet and the legs.

The heat is like a sauna, making you feel good and helping you to sweat out toxins and waste, which you can wash off in the seawater. It increases metabolism rates and circulation. The bright sunlight is an antidote to depression and boosts the immune system. The gentle, rhythmic swooshing sound of the surf is relaxing and meditative. Its eternal, cyclical recurrence is reassuring and brings you in contact with the infinite.

All these aspects of being on the beach are relaxing and counter stress, which is a killer.

So what am I suggesting? That we all quit work and become like the gorillas? No. I enjoy the fruits of civilization. But it might be good to follow their example now and then, take a holiday, go to the beach, reduce our stress levels and just enjoy the moment in a lovely, healthy environment. We might live longer and better, and besides, we could be having fun right now.