To put this post into context, it might help to know I've been working a lot in the garden lately, and I am seeing the world through different eyes.
Nature works in harmony with the four seasons. The humans try to control its environment and be the master (this was the message I got from the movie Avatar). The mind sees it as a challenge to change nature and be its master. It is never content to leave things as they are.
Reading Walden's Pond by Henry David Thoreau has helped give me another perspective on the world. Thoreau clearly has thought long and deeply about the nature of things. People often see themselves as above nature, Thoreau believed life was better when we lived as part of nature. Too often people get caught up in the drama of life, and forget what is important. When removed from modern society, the most important part of life is survival. No longer can the mind get caught up in the turmoil of emotions at the expense of higher needs such as water, food and shelter.
Modern society makes us dependant on others, we loose sense of our own power to survive as a part of nature. In a city nature is hidden, people live in a man made world. We cannot grow our own food or hunt for it, we need to get a job so we can buy it from others, the natural environment is forgotten. A closer connection with nature could be created by introducing nature into cities with more parks and more plants and animals.
Questions
Are we paying attention to the natural world?
Do we notice the changing weather?
Has human invention forgotten our connection to nature?
Quotes
Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. -Henry David Thoreau
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. -Henry David Thoreau
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. -Henry David Thoreau