I often find that when I need a break, what I’m really needing is being outdoors. Which for me serves as a break from the stress and routine of a collegiate life.
A friend told me recently, “You should do your homework on your front porch!”, as if the ability to just breathe “fresh air” is that easily achieved.
However, I took a weekend away in the middle of fall quarter, to a cabin on the water of Puget Sound. I spent my time watching for jumping salmon, trying to spotting seals and attempting to sneak up on the kingfishers. That is what I need when I need a break from stress. Because outside, isn’t just out my front door anymore.
I think that since I have realized this, I have been able to retreat to nature when I need it, but also try and revel in the outdoors that I do have. I have to acknowledge that I am lucky to have a front porch to sit on if I so choose, and I am lucky that every once and a while I have the means to go out into the world and find a place where I can see the stars.
Ross Anderson wrote a piece called Nature Has Lost Its Meaning in the November of last year (2015). It was a reading we were assigned to do in this class and it’s one that has stuck with me till the end of this Anthropocene Politics course. Because to me, this is exactly what resonates when I think about the Anthropocene, global climate change, and my own individualism.
Both in smaller groups and in the greater class, the topic of how can we stay positive about the future of the Anthropocene? It’s hard even for people who try their hardest to be a true environmentalist, in every sense of the word, to believe that there is hope in small choices we make do make a difference. Because in school we can be taught that 1 in 7 billion doesn’t mean anything or make a difference, but that may only be true in statistics.
So now we’re back at the psychological resilience conversation. But it’s truly one of the hardest ideas that I grapple with.
How then do we reimagine our relationship to the nonhuman world? (This is a question the article aims to explore.) Sometime in the 19th century – forests – became a resource to manage. Now I bet its hard for some reading this to grasp what’s wrong with seeing forests or anything on this planet as a resource. But the first step was forests, now everything from that to wild animals have become something we use to live a lavish, entertained and more peaceful life. And the “how did they do it” thought to native people in the day, and also still today, comes up in connection with this. But I think one of the biggest takeaways from this interview piece is that climate change may being the conversation that needs to be had about the natural world. In the spirit of positivity, “we’re getting there folks”.
I recommend you read it again, or somewhere down the road, it make a different impression each time you come back to read it.
Well, if I’ve learned anything in college so far it’s that politics needs to catch up. I hope pursuing a political science minor will help me answer some of my questions about our political system, and I hope that registering my name as a Bernie Sanders supporter, will amplify my voice or help him / another democratic candidate get elected president. #FeeltheBern