Random Thoughts
Return to Nature.
From Forest Bathing, by Dr Qing Li.
The concept that humans have a biological need to connect with nature has been called biophilia, from Greek, meaning “love of life and the living world”. The concept was made popular by the American biologist E.O. Wilson in 1984. He believed that, because we evolved in nature, we have a biological need to connect with it. We love nature because we learned to love the things that helped us survive. We feel comfortable in nature because that is where we have lived for most of our life on earth. We are genetically determined to love the natural world. It is in our DNA.
And this affinity for the natural world is fundamental to our heath. Contact with nature is as vital to out well-being as regular exercise and a healthy diet. “Our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven form it, hope rises on its currents” wrote Wilson. We are hard wired to affiliate with the natural world and just as our health improves when we are in it, so our health suffers when we are divorced from it.
“Having it Made”
Indeed, its is part of the American Dream to “have it made,” it being clearly understood that a person who “has it made” is a person who has attained the status of doing nothing - of being inactive. A body in a bathing suit by a swimming pool, lying motionless on a chaise lounge, is the American image of “having it made.” We should not forget, however, that this is also the image of a dead body…
To become an adult means that we no longer have to do the same things we did as kids. Kids run, but we adults walk. Kids climb, but we take the elevator. Kids scoot under bushes, but we go around them. Kids stand on their heads, but we sit on our bottoms. Kids roll on the ground, but we turn on the mattress. Kids jump up and down, but we shrug our shoulders up and down. Kids laugh with joy, but we smile with restraint. Kids are exuberant, but we are careful. Kids want to have fun, but we want to have security.
In short, to become a “successful” adult means to cease acting like a kid. It is the customary sign of adulthood to cease functioning like a young person. But this conception of adulthood has an unavoidable result: As soon as we stop using these functions, we lose them. And we lose them because our brain, which is a highly responsive organ of adaptation, adjusts to this lack of activity. If certain actions are no longer part of our behavioral inventory, our brain crosses them off. In a word, it forgets. The practical everyday awareness of how these actions feel and how they are performed fades away.
Field Notes.
Always be learning.
It’s better to be prepared for an opportunity that never presents itself than to not be prepared when it does.