Nature™

I wrote this awhile ago, but I think it fits in well with the blog.

 

  I went for a walk at twilight. The sun had been setting for about an hour, and the reds and oranges of refracting  beams of light began to pierce through the blue veil of grey clouds. "Nature", I thought; pure, simple, and radiant. A moment passed as the street lights began to flicker into life, taking up the mantel that the sun had just set down. I found this to be quite a curious thing; as the ensuing artificiality of my surroundings began to consume my thoughts, and the reality of my domain began to invade the beaches of my mind.   Nature is that thing that we see outside of our living-room window, the blur that passes by us as we commute to school or work in the morning; to most of us, it is that magical place that is contained outside our walls and barriers. If you were to ask any stranger to describe to you a part of nature, they would probably point to the tree in front of their house, or their meticulously groomed grass. So, why is it that, during my walk today, I felt removed from what nature might really be? that even outside of my glorified cubical, I still felt protected within a wall of illusion and artificial construct? Is the space that we navigate through, really nature? or is it a nature that our imaginations have created?

  In art, in depicting the physical, it is said that the artist should render what they SEE, and not what they think they see; that the artist should use his or her eyes to translate a scene to paper, and not the preconceived image that their imagination has classified that object with. But have we, humanity, created an environment based on what we view nature to be with our minds eye? That this sudo-nature construct of our neighborhoods and parks and agricultural centres, is not true nature, but a false preconception of what we think nature looks like? That humanity has become so far removed from our birthing environment, that we can no longer picture it as the disease and death ridden collage of colour that it truly is? Or are carpets of well manicured flora and fauna, and the overwhelming sense of security, as natural as the nature known to this world before the industrial revolution?
  Allegory of the Cave, a product of Plato; describes a scene of individuals, who have no concept of the forms that reality has placed around them, being sat in a cave and facing a wall opposite of the entrance. Behind these individuals there is a walkway for objects to be displayed on; behind the walkway, a fire rages, casting the shadows of the displayed objects onto the wall in front of the people in the cave. Now, if a chair (for example) were to be placed in front of the fire, and its shadow cast on the wall, what would the individuals call the shadow displayed in front of them? well they would call it a chair; but in calling the shadow a chair, they are wrong. What they see in front of them is a shadow cast from the object behind them; they have no concept of the objects true nature, unless they turn around to see it. (( http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm ) A better description of Platos cave can be found with that link.)Has humanity been staring at a shadow, and claiming it to be nature? Has the neck muscles of the masses atrophied to the point that we can no longer look at the source of the shadow that lays in waiting right behind us? Maybe it's time for us to look up from our paper, and drink-in what we are attempting to draw; to catch a glimpse of the true beauty and terror that is casting that shadow. To reclaim what nature really is, and to foster a new love for our blue spaceship of infinity.
  But maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I had too much caffeine today, or maybe it's the shock of realizing I had only one roll of film left after only an hour of walking into town. Maybe I think too much.