April: On Nature
April 13
Today's reflection was inspired by a quote from Wallace Stegner's The Sound of Mountain Water.
We are trading in the mystery and beauty of the natural world for trinkets and devices that spike our dopamine for a few moments to days and then are quickly discarded or forgotten about.
We live greater than the kings of old, having virtually any type of food on the planet prepared and then delivered right to our door. Need a new hose for the garden? Get it delivered the same day you order it. Need a replica claymore steel sword from that movie you loved as a kid? Get it delivered tomorrow.
And we are masters of the climate within our own homes, making it hot in the winter and cold in the summer. We even heat and cool our pools, depending on where you live. We live as though we have shackled and beaten nature into submission, forcing it to exist solely for our pleasure. But it doesn’t exist for us. We exist together. As one. But sometimes, oftentimes, we forget it. It’s easy to, unfortunately. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day. To want the next shiny thing that comes out, dangled in front of our eyes.
It happens to all of us. But we must actively remember where we came from, and we must always fight for it and fight to preserve it.
We are not single and separate from nature, we are part of the trees, rocks, and soil—brothers and sisters to the animals. We must cherish and preserve the remaining wilderness at all costs, or we risk losing part of what makes us human.
