When what you have beats what you want

Lest I get too heady with all my talk of radical political acts and trusting wisdom before science, I thought you might like to know where No Impact Man goes body surfing while the rest of NYC wrestles their cars out the Long Island Expressway to the Hamptons.

Fort Tilden, a former military base that is now a state park.

I’ve been to beaches all over the world and this was one of the nicest. Swear to God! An abandoned white sandy beach right in New York City. The water was clean, the surf was up, and we saw a grand total of five people in two hours.

We went because I couldn’t stand another day away from the ocean and because Michelle had some time off work. Since we use no carbon-producing transportation, we rode bikes—it took two and half hours.

For lunch, we enjoyed a farmers market special: a bread, cheese and tomato picnic. To drink, we rinsed our palates with NYC's wonderful tap water carried in ultra-cool reusable water bottles, filled from Fort Tilden's public drinking fountains.

The thing is, we never would have enjoyed this gem of a picnic on this gem of a beach if it weren't for the "deprivation" of the No Impact Man project. No Impact teaches us to enjoy what we have instead of wasting our time up trying to figure out how to get what we want.

Photo of Fort Tilden beach by Kyoko Hamada and courtesy of New York Magazine.