Precarious Balance

I watched a short documentary on white tailed deer today. It seems they're very good at existing on the "edge," meaning they are quite good at thriving and surviving right where the human suburban world meets the wilderness. So I got to thinking as I usually do, and thought I would try and write some of those thoughts down.

I inhabit quite a unique place where I currently live, and it has taught me so much about myself and so much more about my appreciation and connection to nature. I live in the main "town" of the island right on a road that leads to the entrance trail to go up into the mountains.

Now that the weather is a bit hotter and the spring explosion of bugs hide out during the heat, I spend a ton of time in the woods on the mountain trails. I love the ocean too, but I've always felt more connected, more at home in the woods. Just a personal preference I suppose, also owing to the fact that I camped in the woods a lot when I was younger because I didn't grow up anywhere near an ocean, plus I love trees.

Unlike the deer, though, I have to participate in human society. The more time I spend in the woods, the safer I feel amongst the trees and silence than I do surrounded by people. I've always felt like that though, so this is nothing new. I think as an adult however, the stakes are a bit higher. Whereas as a kid it was easy to brush me off as that kid who just likes to climb trees and look at plants, as an adult, I often feel that more is expected of me, that perhaps some may think I should have grown out of that phase, or perhaps that what I do may seem childish or detached from reality, or even that I do it to escape having to deal with people.

And that is true, I do do it to get away from people. Yet, I'm no longer running away from them as a stressed induced escape plan as much as I'm just going into the woods because modern society genuinely confuses me. The products, the constant consuming, the fashion, the glitz, the glamour. It gets more and more foreign to me, and I feel more and more like a deer who no longer wants to live on the edge just because of the resource benefits, but sort of just wants to be away from cities and the majority of urbanites as it were. One of my teachers asked me where I wanted to live next, and I said somewhere with lots of nature. Then he asked me if I wasn't afraid of animals, and I smiled. Then he just said, yeah, humans are scarier than animals, and we had a good laugh.

I try to remain hopeful, that somehow we'll figure out how to reintegrate nature into our lives to where we aren't so concerned with getting a quick drink from a vending machine with plastic that will take years to biodegrade, possibly killing wildlife, but where we realize that by buying from those machines and not doing things like putting public water fountains in parks is a sort of consumer prison. Where it's so much a prison that those buying from the machines think they have a choice because there are so many options, but don't realize that that plastic bottle, that change that required precious metals, or that bill that required the processing of trees, all have an irreversible environmental impact. One that we do not address on a macro level, one that as a whole society does not think about, or does not know what they as a single person can do to make anything any better. Because we put it in terms like this "how can we ensure that we can get cleaner energy to continue making and selling these products so people have "options" when they just want something cold to drink" instead of "damn, I wish there was a public water fountain here because I wouldn't have to use plastic, any one could drink from it, and I won't have to slowly destroy my health and set a cyclical model for future generations to follow and ruin their health by the overconsumption of sugary drinks."

Today I also thought about the overt targeting of consumers and how it has been intelligently designed and implemented to benefit profit. After I came down from the mountains in the morning, I went to the supermarket to buy a few things, that of course were wrapped in excessive amounts of plastic, plastic that does not get recycled but burned because it does not get shipped to be recycled. As soon as I walked in I was bombarded by a man shouting prices for some product that was being pushed, a hoard of people who live here and tourists making their way through the aisles, trying just to hear their own thought over the one million songs and shouting that is common at many Japanese supermarkets. I had to repeat the items I came for in my head, and quickly get the hell out of there. It was such a drastic change coming down from the quiet mountain and climbing a tree in the morning to be bombarded by advertisements and tons of artificial products and colors, music and shouting.

Then I realized that many people who were shopping were there because this was the big "shopping" day where people come from the other towns to get stuff they can't get in their little mom and pop shops during the week. Then they get all these products pushed on them, you know the ones they "chose" to buy and take home to feed whoever. It seems that even though I live on this remote island with pristine nature, I can still be bombarded by targeted consumerism if I am at the stores at the wrong time. Most of the shoppers looked stressed, like they couldn't remember what they had come for and so just were buying whatever they saw fit, going throught the drudgery of yet another week of going to the shops. Essentially, like a deer in headlights.

Everyone experiences nature in different ways, and I am no exception. Yet I often wonder when I see people hiking in the woods, talking loudly, listening to radios, sitting and snacking, taking pictures of themselves as proof they were there, and wearing all sorts of expensive looking gear, what do they define "experiencing" nature. How do they see nature? Is it something that should be conquered, feared, integrated so long as it feeds into people's ideas of what they need? Or is it all of those or something else? Of course the picture is more complex, and people are individuals. I think these thoughts at times when I climb a tree and look down at the little city I technically live in. I think about those people who work at the store, who likely never have time to ever go hiking, who despite the fact they live on such a pristine island full of lush beauty, because they are dependent on a national system to provide many of their goods and services, never have much time to explore, and I'm sure want to leave to experience a sort of different life, maybe. It is one thing to drive through the woods and mountains in your car looking at all the beauty nature has to offer on your way to work, it is another thing to run your hand in the dirt or through the tree trunk to feel for yourself what all the things you look at everyday actually feel like. To spend an hour or two in the silence of the woods.

I've learned to embrace my "weirdness" as it would be defined by many folks who don't really know me all that well. Hell, if I had never learned to embrace myself, I may have gone much longer thinking and telling myself that I am weird, believing that maybe there is/was something wrong with me and trying to fix it by who knows what. Yet, I've taught myself how to exist on this edge like the deer. Having to exist in modern society in some form or fashion because I am human and I was born into this time and situation. Of course there are a hell of a lot of things I enjoy about modern life. Things like running water when I shit, being able to listen to music, being able to buy markers to draw and color, and a stove to make my many many culinary creations. There is however a large part of me that goes into the woods and often just wishes I didn't have to come back. That I could somehow have a portable stove and music to listen to and I'd be set.

I do what I can though, because I know what sets me off. I am quite a gentle and caring creature, but this comes at a very high maintenance cost sometimes, just like the unpredictable bull when provoked. I can be a bit overwhelming for a ton of folks, I have a whole lot going on in my head, especially when I'm around people in a non-natural setting. I don't think this has become more pronounced as an adult, as much as when I do the things I've always done, to some folks it may seem a bit odd that I still cimb trees at my age, or that I can just sit and not move and be in complete silence for a good amount of time. I guess some folks are afraid of sitting with themselves more than anything else. But I know myself quite well, even better now, and I know what can trigger my thoughts of annoyance and overwhelmingness for others. More importantly, I know how to control those thoughts now and what to do to ensure I don't blow up or get angry. It usually involves being near trees or drawing plants. That's my version of a stress ball ha ha. It works wonders for me. The more time I spend in nature, the less time I want to spend in urban areas, in buildings, or enclosed in a house or room no matter how "modern" and "nice" it is. All the money in the world is useless to me if I cannot be around trees.

So for now I work with a very precarious balance within myself. Just like the natural world, it is very complex, and very delicate, but just like the natural world as well, it can adapt quickly to new environments when environmental stresses exist. That's what I try to do, learn from all the fucked up and crazy shit I've done, and adapt and move on. I'm quite nomadic, yet I've never run away from myself, no matter how complex or mysterious or how hard it may have been for those around me to handle me and my ideas and perceptions of my reality at times. I've built and burnt many many bridges along the way, but I've picked up the pieces, learned what I could, and continued moving. You make decisions, and you stick to them as best you can, learning all the lessons along the way. Living, breathing, dreaming, and maintaining the precarious balance within.