Living in nature
I’ve had recurring impulses to learn some nature skills for a while now, but when I thought about actually doing it, it never felt right. This morning I think I finally pinned it down.
In our culture, we’re accustomed to such things falling under "wilderness survival". Implicit in this is that nature is "wild" and needs to be "survived". It’s as if the non-human world were an enemy that must be out-maneuvered or defeated. This is, of course, our attitude towards nature in general, so it’s no real surprise.
On the other hand, one could think about living in nature. This is an entirely different perspective. Here, nature is known to be inherently life-sustaining. Of course, one needs to know how to go about it (illness and death being as natural as anything else).
There, then, I think is the answer to my seemingly conflicting impulses. I was assuming I was feeling a call towards wilderness survival, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I was feeling drawn towards living in nature.
Now, if I can just figure out how to learn such things…
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:45 am
DEFINITELY. I think it’s also important to remember that the idea that human beings are separate from nature is just foolishness. Cities may be intentional spaces where we can pretend we’re in charge, but so are anthills. As long as we go on thinking that a movie theater is less natural than a forest we’re participating in the delusion that human beings are not animals and that our tool use is not a part of nature, which is a silly Western fantasy rooted in the Abrahamic religions. Well, more than silly, it’s environmentally catastrophic.
On that note, we should go hiking some weekend (or weekday, if you have one off).
August 3rd, 2008 at 11:12 am
Good point about humans not being separate from nature. I still tend to fall into that one myself.
We need a better word than “nature” for this context. What I’m really trying to say is “the world outside of modern human construction”, but I don’t think we have a word for that.
Hiking sounds great! I’ll email you.