essay on when I see in nature in 50 words 150
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Nature Nature is the world around us, except for human-made phenomena. As humans are the only animal species that consciously, powerfully manipulates the environment, we think of ourselves as exalted, as special. We acknowledge that in an objective view we are merely one of many organisms, and that we are not able to survive outside of our natural world of air, earth, water and life. But we tend to be poor leaders in the "hierarchy" of animal life. Despite our greatness, too often we waste, we fight, we breed heedlessly, and are too self-centered and short-sighted. I take note of the increasing awareness of ecology, at least in Western culture, and am heartened. We may still change our weapons of war into tools of peace, and our habits of despoilation into nuturing. Earth is so large, that even if humans destroy ourselves, plus most other life forms, there will still be nature. The soil, oceans, atmosphere and weather would still interact with solar power to allow some life to exist. Earth cannot be a barren place like the moon. Humans can, then, reduce our planetary paradise into a hell of sorts, but cannot, I believe, destroy the planet itself. This thought, sober and gloomy, is a modern one; in earlier ages it is unlikely that people contemplated ourselves wiping-out most life on earth. I don't know why I brought it to the forefront of my nature essay. It does offer a perspective. Nature's life forces, as well as its winds, eruptions, quakes, avalanches, freezes, etc., is immensely powerful. I recall being allowed to study revegetation on the freshly-erupted Mt. St. Helens. It was more than 10 years ago, so my memory has retained only a few observations: life was strongest near water sources, and the weediest plants were most successful in revegetating the barren gray ash. Mosses tolerant of Seattle's freeway cracks grew on the loose sand and ash. Fireweed, which thrives after forest fires, clear-cuts and bombed sites, was abundant. If memory serves, scientists in general expressed pleased surprise at the rapidity of revegetation.
Even in this age of high-technology, where many people who live in cities and work full-time with computers see but little nature intimately -- at least we all are still aware of the weather and the seasons. We all know that a short, rainy winter day is less pleasant than a warm sunny June day. Most of us are cheered at the return of spring, and we mostly have certain pleasant or striking memories we associate with each season. My awareness of nature was at this relatively normal level until high school. I recall as an 8th grade student, that nature was wholly unappealing to me. I liked sports, music, comic books, stamp collecting, and whatnot. Trees were trees, grass was grass, flowers were flowers and weeds were weeds. But by the time I was in 10th grade, and especially 11th grade, I had been affected profoundly by nature awareness. I went from a normal worldview to one wherein the value of being aware of and appreciative of nature was a centerpiece. In retrospect, this was the pivotal transformation of my life. In high school I went from just another one of the guys into a person whose passion and livelihood became nature. The process was begun, I think, by my having read Thoreau's Walden. I did this because I was exhorted to do so by an influential 8th grade teacher, George Hofbauer. Walden affected me, as I was at that ripe, receptive, impressionable age. In turn I read other authors: Emerson, Goethe, Voltaire, Carlyle, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Schopenhauer, Pascal, Montaigne, etc.A common theme in all the writings was the importance of nature, of calmly reflecting, and of thinking for oneself. Goethe wrote:
The thoughtful man's greatest comfort is to have explored what can be known and to worship the unfathomable quietly.
I began meditating under trees, listening to birds, tasting wild berries, and finding joy and excitement, meaning and inspiration. My self-confidence boomed, my sense of being an individual blossomed. I began designing a custom meal for myself from the menu of life. The awareness of natural beauty was like a revelation. I looked at, and experienced, all manner of organisms, and light. Rainfall or windstorms became celebratory. At the time I had boundless ambition and wanted to learn the names and attributes of all the birds, butterflies, spiders, insects, seashells, plants, stars and constellations -- etc. It was a kind of euphoria. I saw the utility of such knowledge, too. How to raise vegetables and berries, and which plants in the wild were edible, appealed greatly to me. I began gardening. At the time I thought I'd grow up, move to the country, and be self-sufficient. I kept a journal in which I recorded plant flowering dates, and all my natural history observations.
Even in this age of high-technology, where many people who live in cities and work full-time with computers see but little nature intimately -- at least we all are still aware of the weather and the seasons. We all know that a short, rainy winter day is less pleasant than a warm sunny June day. Most of us are cheered at the return of spring, and we mostly have certain pleasant or striking memories we associate with each season. My awareness of nature was at this relatively normal level until high school. I recall as an 8th grade student, that nature was wholly unappealing to me. I liked sports, music, comic books, stamp collecting, and whatnot. Trees were trees, grass was grass, flowers were flowers and weeds were weeds. But by the time I was in 10th grade, and especially 11th grade, I had been affected profoundly by nature awareness. I went from a normal worldview to one wherein the value of being aware of and appreciative of nature was a centerpiece. In retrospect, this was the pivotal transformation of my life. In high school I went from just another one of the guys into a person whose passion and livelihood became nature. The process was begun, I think, by my having read Thoreau's Walden. I did this because I was exhorted to do so by an influential 8th grade teacher, George Hofbauer. Walden affected me, as I was at that ripe, receptive, impressionable age. In turn I read other authors: Emerson, Goethe, Voltaire, Carlyle, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Schopenhauer, Pascal, Montaigne, etc.A common theme in all the writings was the importance of nature, of calmly reflecting, and of thinking for oneself. Goethe wrote:
The thoughtful man's greatest comfort is to have explored what can be known and to worship the unfathomable quietly.
I began meditating under trees, listening to birds, tasting wild berries, and finding joy and excitement, meaning and inspiration. My self-confidence boomed, my sense of being an individual blossomed. I began designing a custom meal for myself from the menu of life. The awareness of natural beauty was like a revelation. I looked at, and experienced, all manner of organisms, and light. Rainfall or windstorms became celebratory. At the time I had boundless ambition and wanted to learn the names and attributes of all the birds, butterflies, spiders, insects, seashells, plants, stars and constellations -- etc. It was a kind of euphoria. I saw the utility of such knowledge, too. How to raise vegetables and berries, and which plants in the wild were edible, appealed greatly to me. I began gardening. At the time I thought I'd grow up, move to the country, and be self-sufficient. I kept a journal in which I recorded plant flowering dates, and all my natural history observations.
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I declare this world is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it exists.” The beauty of nature can have a profound effect upon our senses, those gateways from the outer world to the inner, whether it results in disbelief in its very existence as Emerson notes, or feelings such as awe, wonder, or amazement. But what is it about nature and the entities that make it up that cause us, oftentimes unwillingly, to feel or declare that they are beautiful?
One answer that Emerson offers is that “the simple perception of natural forms is a delight.” When we think of beauty in nature, we might most immediately think of things that dazzle the senses – the prominence of a mountain, the expanse of the sea, the unfolding of the life of a flower. Often it is merely the perception of these things itself which gives us pleasure, and this emotional or affective response on our part seems to be crucial to our experience of beauty. So in a way there is a correlate here to the intrinsic value of nature; Emerson says:
the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us a delight in and for themselves
Most often, it seems to me, we find these things to be beautiful not because of something else they might bring us – a piece of furniture, say, or a ‘delicacy’ to be consumed – but because of the way that the forms of these things immediately strike us upon observation. In fact, one might even think that this experience of beauty is one of the bases for valuing nature – nature is valuable because it is beautiful.
Emerson seems to think that beauty in the natural world is not limited to certain parts of nature to the exclusion of others. He writes that every landscape lies under “the necessity of being beautiful”, and that “beauty breaks in everywhere.” As we slowly creep out of a long winter in the Northeast, I think Emerson would find the lamentations about what we have ‘endured’ to be misguided:
The inhabitants of the cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year….To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.
The close observer of nature sees a river in constant flux, even when the river’s water is frozen and everything appears to be static and unchanging for a time. Nature can reveal its beauty in all places and at all times to the eye that knows how to look for it. We can hear Emerson wrangle with himself on this very point in the words of this journal entry:
At night I went out into the dark and saw a glimmering star and heard a frog, and Nature seemed to say, Well do not these suffice? Here is a new scene, a new experience. Ponder it, Emerson, and not like the foolish world, hanker after thunders and multitudes and vast landscapes, the sea or Niagara.
One answer that Emerson offers is that “the simple perception of natural forms is a delight.” When we think of beauty in nature, we might most immediately think of things that dazzle the senses – the prominence of a mountain, the expanse of the sea, the unfolding of the life of a flower. Often it is merely the perception of these things itself which gives us pleasure, and this emotional or affective response on our part seems to be crucial to our experience of beauty. So in a way there is a correlate here to the intrinsic value of nature; Emerson says:
the sky, the mountain, the tree, the animal, give us a delight in and for themselves
Most often, it seems to me, we find these things to be beautiful not because of something else they might bring us – a piece of furniture, say, or a ‘delicacy’ to be consumed – but because of the way that the forms of these things immediately strike us upon observation. In fact, one might even think that this experience of beauty is one of the bases for valuing nature – nature is valuable because it is beautiful.
Emerson seems to think that beauty in the natural world is not limited to certain parts of nature to the exclusion of others. He writes that every landscape lies under “the necessity of being beautiful”, and that “beauty breaks in everywhere.” As we slowly creep out of a long winter in the Northeast, I think Emerson would find the lamentations about what we have ‘endured’ to be misguided:
The inhabitants of the cities suppose that the country landscape is pleasant only half the year….To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.
The close observer of nature sees a river in constant flux, even when the river’s water is frozen and everything appears to be static and unchanging for a time. Nature can reveal its beauty in all places and at all times to the eye that knows how to look for it. We can hear Emerson wrangle with himself on this very point in the words of this journal entry:
At night I went out into the dark and saw a glimmering star and heard a frog, and Nature seemed to say, Well do not these suffice? Here is a new scene, a new experience. Ponder it, Emerson, and not like the foolish world, hanker after thunders and multitudes and vast landscapes, the sea or Niagara.
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