So the past week, I have been having a really rough time going to sleep. I don’t know exactly what it is; I figured my room was too hot, even with my window wide open! (the wind was just NOT wanting to enter my apartment!) Anyway, as I laid awake, of course with lids closed to try to act as if I’m falling asleep, a thought kept seeping into my restless mind each night and it was both beautiful and scary. (I’ll explain the scary in a few):
Nature, in all her patient and massive splendor, is claiming, slowly, what is rightfully hers from us, the humans.
“Oh HI plant growing from the steel! =D”
Though, it’s all an everlasting battle, and it might seem like Mother Nature is losing at times (think of the increasing demand of timber, the cutting down of rainforests around the world, food shortages, etc), but Mama tree packs a punch filled with a stamina that will, let’s be honest, make any man “green” with envy (See what I did there!? haha!).
When one sees fern growing on old buildings or roots of massive trees breaking through cement in certain places, you can realize the perfect and effortless determination of nature to claim those parts of earth back. Abandoned iron furnaces with grass and trees growing from within the broken down and desolate walls of what used to be a busy place. It just seems that where Man doesn’t succeed, nature will. Check out the link below for pics of Nature eating part of Detroit going on this current moment! (It’s actually a tad sad):
http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/index.php?/photography/what-is-human/
But, instead of battling, why don’t we learn to better co-exist? Oh wait, we do!
On Thursday night, as I lay there in contempt for the summer heat lingering in my room despite the gaping window in the middle of winter (my heater was off), I had a string of thoughts of how man was now using ways to co-exist with nature just as I was hoping for a breeze to cool my room. I thought of wind turbines being set up, with ever growing imperativeness emphasized by the media, scientists, and scholars. I thought of the bright ideas of ethanol, and how the idea came to be, motivated by the visions of a cleaner, less polluted world. The article that my previous blog was about mentioned farmers using ancient Mayan techniques to grow and distribute crops. These are all very important due to the fact that it’s all with the intent to preserve nature. Where solar panels light up our cities, as it already does in some places on a very small scale. With “going green” ads advertised like its going to create a 200% increase in revenue and whole, unprocessed foods are marketed as healthier. I fell asleep around the time I was picturing Lady GaGa bringing “Eve”‘s garment back into fashion.
Friday night, as I was getting ready for bed, I went to open my window (to comfort my conscious in thinking that although it had not helped at all the last 2 days, that today will be different >_>). A HUMONGOUS FLYING ROACH SCATTERED INSIDE seeking shelter from the imminent rainstorm that was going to pound Manhattan. I gasp, partly because I have not seen a roach that size since visiting my house in the Dominican Republic, and partly because I felt Nature heard my thoughts the night before and was in disagreement. I hurried and grabbed the first spray can of whatever, because squishing it would prove to be a bigger mess than suffocating it. I grabbed a spray of shoe waterproofing protector and doused the monstrosity until it wasn’t moving. I immediately closed my window and thought, maybe nature isn’t always the best choice. Am I going to risk sleeping with sizable bugs for a chance at a gust of wind entering my room? No, I’ll sweat thanks. As I lay in bed, I then thought of the vision of what the future was like for people in the last century, and still is like for most of us today. Flying cars and teleportation devices cramped our cities and communal centers. Robots and humans share the streets, both grabbing wifi waves WITH THEIR BRAINS/ROBOT HEAD! Tourist destinations involved zero-gravity lessons for safe space trips. Looking back at all the cartoons, all the movies, and books I have come across, our natural habitat as is known here on earth was no where to be seen. I figure, to have a plant in your home will be a luxury. Nature, will have lost the battle…or actually will win it if humans decide to live in space.
So with 2 very different approaches as to what our future will be like, one nature embracing, the other being where nature is virtually non-existent, what do you think our world will be like? What approach would we take as a better one, or will we even fully attain one or the other?
We have to keep in mind, we have been using and envisioning both for decades, maybe centuries (just a few centuries though, not sure if the flourishing times of the European Renaissance conceived a slight thought of flying cars.) And both cannot exist with each other. Unless, some sort of revolution occurs and we will be split between earth people and space people, which sounds…Avatarish.
Your thoughts?
Mind on Fire 