(Parts 1, 2 and 3 are here, here and here)
Embrace the Opportunity to Interact
We have a priceless opportunity in this city to teach our children and educate ourselves about a wider world than one constrained by cement and concrete. So many of us today are alienated and removed from the environment. Many children have no concept of where the food on their table really originates. They are oblivious to the realities that milk comes from a cow, that vegetables are grown in a field, that the meat that they see in pristine, shrink-wrapped trays were once living, breathing creatures.
I truly believe that losing contact with the living world around us leaves us lesser for it.
We cover ourselves in the ultimately ephemeral trappings of civilization, seeing in them a hard reality. Yet they are fleeting and transitory, easily derailed and causing chaos, confusion and fear when breakdowns (as they inevitably do) occur.
The cycle of life is often muted and obscured in our urban lifestyle, its reality lost in the frantic rush towards what are ultimately vacuous goals.
We’ve forgotten how to breathe.
We’ve forgotten how to open eyes clouded by smog and the misplaced urgencies created by machines and corporate factories.
We’ve lost sight of the fact that the wildlife so many despise are simply part of the natural order of things – that we too are part of the cycle - our minds, and our spirits connected spiritually and emotionally to the earth we seek to dominate and expunge.
We need to take a deep breath and learn to embrace the creatures who are our fellow travellers in this all too short journey.
Excellent posts. I'm constantly amazed by the idiot city people who pave over green space. We need it for oxygen, for cooling, for respite from the city itself, and as refuge for the wildlife that surrounds us (often invisible to our eyes). Your last line says it all.
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