[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', '
')It's over. Deal with it.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'I') will offer a little variant upon the comments in this thread. As humans we have built a cocoon which are our cities. Within those cities we are born and die. This disconnect with nature can be viewed as a specialization in regards to our immersion in a urban environment without a need to account for or appreciate nature. So this lack of involvement has meant that mankind did not 'NEED" to know about nature and how to live within it to survive. It recalls that infantile adage that you ask a teenager where does food come from and she/he replies the supermarket. So this narrow range of experience defines our urban specialization. It is one of the contributors to our woeful disregard for nature.

[onlooker]

Just a little ruminating, but living all my life in the NY area, I would not mind spending what remains of my life in some place like Mount Totumas. Or at least a long vacation in some such place.

[Newfie]

Buy a boat.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'Y')ou all are too wrapped up in your trees.

Too many words.

It's over. Deal with it.

You and yours might not survive.

Put your efforts into those endeavors that might come through.

[Newfie]

If you are looking for folks to look up to look to Farley Mowat.

He spoke the truth with a clear a touching voice.

Of course that is why we baned him from the USA.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', 'I')f you are looking for folks to look up to look to Farley Mowat.

He spoke the truth with a clear a touching voice.

Of course that is why we baned him from the USA.

[Newfie]

I suspect that if there were they would be silenced.

Perhaps they are lurking around the Internet, but we see them as weirdos?

I like jay FitzGerald, but have sorta lost track of him. And he does not have the following of Mowat. But some of his philosophy, if weird, sticks to me.

http://sanityandsimplicity.blogspot.com

Perhaps there are some in the Deep Green movement, like Watson from Sea Shepars.

Have I recommended "The Green Interview" with Silver Don Cameron? Some good interviews there, I have many to review yet.

http://www.thegreeninterview.com

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'J')ust a little ruminating, but living all my life in the NY area, I would not mind spending what remains of my life in some place like Mount Totumas. Or at least a long vacation in some such place.

[onlooker]

Thanks Timo for the encouragement!

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'T')hanks Timo for the encouragement!

[jedrider]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'Y')ou can find a patch of woods or meadow along the side of old rail road tracks, between old factories, fragmented forest patches in among malls and suburbia and in the early morning hours you will see the age old dynamic of these habitats at work.

[onlooker]

Thanks Ibon for that perspective. I have to confess it is hard as I am a city person. But I find the surroundings of the city so tiring and sterile. The endless parade of cars and unattractive buildings ,cookie cutter houses and Mcdonalds. Your invitation to see where I can nature is wise. I would though love to spend the rest of my existence and any and all future existences in places that are pristine as God made them. Perhaps this desire is also borne out of a desire to live in a world much less complicated and less filled with challenges, threats and pressures. I refer to people in many countries who live in crime ridden neighborhoods, people who work 2 or more jobs, people who find it very difficult to make ends meet. People in poor countries. I like coming here to PO because in a way it is therapeutic for me. I do not feel so besieged by these challenges and threats as I think many people around the world but it is evident to me that they are besieged. So nature affords a literal and figurative escape to a place and state of mind of peace.

[Newfie]

I too live in a center city area. It wasn't so bad as long as I reverse committed to the burbs for my job. But once my office moved to the city, and I started walking to work, I became very depressed. It took me a while to figure out the connection.

Then we bought the big boat and now, working part time, spend much time on the boat. Soon we will move aboard full time. Here we listen to birds, chase the ducks off our deck, see beaver and fox and deer. All within 1hour of our cc Philly home.

When cruising things are vastly different, you are, or can be, immersed in nature, if you choose. Whales breaching around you, puffins scurrying to get out of your way, luminescent lights in the water, a moon bow ( I never knew they existed.)

It is doable, if you really want to. All within two weeks of NYC, easy.

[onlooker]

Sounds like a magnificent idea Newfie, I am glad for you and your ability to make this dream come true. I certainly will try and make mine as well come true. Your boat is like an oasis in the desert.

[Newfie]

Onlooker,

We are all minions of the system. We can never truly break free, nor do we want to, the goodies are addictive.

What we are trying to do is to wean ourselves, taking time to adjust. Too often folks see it as all or nothing, but then fail due to the magnitude of the change.

Every day at work I see pencil necked 80 year olds totter into the elevator on the way to their office. I see that as a vision of Christmas future.

You know how to eat an elephant right? One bite at a time.

That first bite can simply to be to read about folks who have done something different, to convience yourself that it is humanly possible. To have the vision, the dream. That itself can be sustaining.

[onlooker]

just occurred to me how rather ironically learning all this rather serious and somber news of the the status of planet Earth and humans, I feel free of the essence of what this world can most deprive you of - that is freedom. So it really resonates the adage the truth shall set you free. In a way that is also about seeing the forest rather then the just the trees. Our lives are but a speck of time in the history of the universe so I dwell now in a state of anticipation of what comes after this life. It may be that this life is but a tree in the forest of lives yet to come for all of us or better yet a much better life to come.

[Newfie]

Maybe, make the most of the one you got. It's your only sure thing.

If you believe in God then believe he gave this to you for a reason, and he will take it when he wants to. In the meantime enjoy what you have.

[PEAKINT]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I') downloaded Origin of Species by Charles Darwin for .99 cents as an e-book and just finished reading it. It was 35 years since I read the book. What occurred to me this time around was how the observation of macro ecological phenomenon in the field lead Darwin to his theory of evolution and how natural sciences since his time have become more specialized and more micro down to the phylogenetic work on genes that determines evolutionary taxonomy today. Evolutionary biologists today rarely even go out into the field anymore and their level of specialization takes them far adrift from understanding the macro phenomenon of natural history. They know gene sequences but little of bio-geography for example.

I am guessing that this is also true in a suite of other fields from engineering to medicine to economics to sociology, etc. Specialization to the point that you can’t see the forest for the specialized tree you are perched on.
It is no wonder that we are so incapable of acting on the macro consequences of human overshoot when we live in a world of collective blind specialists so to speak. No one is steering the ship with a view of the broad horizon.
Reading original material from a couple hundred years ago really can provide insights into how far we have come at the same time as how far away we have drifted.

I thought this merited a thread of its own, the danger of becoming a bunch of short sighted mice focused on our minutiae where individuals and institutions can no longer act on macro consequences that are becoming more undeniable every day.

To open a discussion on this topic leads to the question, is this direction of specialization also one of those cyclical phenomenon that will one day swing back once we drift so far afield that consequences actually pull us back into the realm of the macro and holistic? Isn’t climate change one of those forces? Here we are 7 billion blind little mice specialized on our tasks as we do damage to the ultimate macro environment, our planet? Does this explain both the lack of collective will and blindness in being incapable of steering us toward mitigations. Or in finance the ever more sophisticated algorithms that go into moving a market and how this is taking us so far afield from a resilient economic system resulting in great disparity of wealth. Or how medicine is recently moving into specializing on the genetic level in offering tailor made therapies for the individual at exactly the time when the vast majority can no longer afford basic health care. It seems these are all examples of disparities and a weakening of collective resiliency that happens when there is over specialization.

Our species seems in exile and adrift in this specialized blindness.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PEAKINT', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')
Our species seems in exile and adrift in this specialized blindness.