18 - Nature

Travelandleisure.com

In covering autumn and summer the past two days, it’s only right that I spend today celebrating nature at large.

Where to begin? The sheer vastness of nature is overwhelming, and its variety of ecosystems is so large, I could spend the rest of the month discussing each one individually.

There’s oceans and rainforests, frozen tundras and deserts, plains and mountains, marshlands and the savannah - and within each one, vibrant life forms all playing a role in the delicate balance of existence. Insects, birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and ocean creatures - the latter of which include a chunk of life that exists in depths so beyond our capacity to explore, we’ve yet to discover them.

There’s the intricate, geometric wonder of individual snowflakes, and the similar beauty in a single grain of sand - to the behemoth, intimidating nature of redwood trees and mountain ranges that give us perspective into how small we really are in the grand scheme of things.

Nature can be delicate, peaceful, and warm - like a hummingbird hovering in front of a flower, or two puppies play fighting with each other. But it can also be violent, chaotic, and destructive - like lightning storms, hurricanes, and volcanoes. 

It provides mini miracles, like childbirth, or the ability to adapt to new surroundings - but it can also be unforgiving, like with the reality of a food chain, and a predator’s need to eat innocent prey in order to survive and maintain order and balance.

Any one of these topics are meaty enough and important enough to warrant their own articles, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that nature’s overall diversity, and simultaneous existence between peace and violence, life and death, fire and water, calm and chaos, are what make it such a unique force. 

It’s ironic and paradoxical to think that the more we advance scientifically, the more we learn about nature - but subsequently, the more we advance scientifically, the less we experience nature.

We’re losing our connection to the natural world. With every new phone we buy, with every technological advancement we make.

It’s probably why we’re so emotionally detached from the fact that we’re killing the very planet we’re living on with our behavior. It’s easy to destroy something you don’t care about, even if our fates and ultimate survival are inextricably linked.