Nature. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Well…sort of. The truth is we really can’t live without nature. However, it is possible for us to learn to live with nature. Sometimes I think we just choose not to do it. This may not be because we are just bad people and don’t give a darn about the rest of the world. Most of us want to be one with nature, but this world we have come to create for ourselves makes it extremely difficult to do just that.
It is so easy to just say that we want the best for nature, but realistically it is so incredibly hard to keep nature’s best interest at heart all of the time. We have created a world in which we rely on cars and airplanes and machinery and construction equipment and etc., and etc., and etc. The list goes on forever. Technology has become so advanced and we have become almost completely dependent on fossil fuels and all sorts of things that are polluting and ruining the environment. I completely agree that maybe nature’s best interest should come first sometimes, but exactly where this fine line between us and nature is drawn, I’m not so sure.
I grew up in a small town. Actually you can’t even really call it a town; it is more of a village. My house is way out in the country. We don’t really have next door neighbors, we have next door trees. So, I have always been around nature and have learned to respect it and see its beauty. In fact I feel that one of my main reasons for protecting nature is simply to preserve its beauty and innocence. I couldn’t imagine living in a big city without the fresh air to breathe or the green grass under my feet.
I come from a family that also respects nature. They don’t litter. They don’t hunt. They recycle. My mom even gets trees in the mail from the Arbor Day Foundation to plant around our house. However, being that we live far from everything, it is necessary for us to drive just about anywhere we need to go. So, it seems that there has to be a trade off. We want to respect nature, but in order for us to live our lives we sometimes have to put our own interests first.
My family and I recently took a trip out West. I got to witness firsthand the natural beauty of the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Tetons. I got to smell the fresh, clean, pure air. I got to see the magnificent trees and furry cute animals in Yellowstone. I visited the Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska and saw so much beautiful scenery that it was almost hard to digest it all. I experienced all of this and it gave me an appreciation for nature far beyond what I had before taking the trip. It almost gave me a sense of peace just being there and looking at all of it. It was not only beautiful to look at, but it was refreshing to see such raw beauty untouched or harmed by humans. The people there seemed to respect the land and lived with nature not against it.
There are oh so many things that people in this world are doing that are so cruel to the environment. Some of it is to benefit mankind, but some of it doesn’t seem to benefit anything or anyone. The latter one troubles me greatly. I can’t stand it when I see a piece of litter alongside the road. Pure carelessness. I can’t stand it when trees are chopped down for no reason. Pure recklessness. I can’t stand it to see innocent animals being shot for sport. Pure insanity. It is all so wrong. I can’t believe it is even happening. I know you have to weigh the pros and cons when trying to make a decision, but I really don’t see any pros for behavior like this. These sorts of things have to stop or we really are going to destroy everything.
Nature is such a beautiful and magnificent thing. It is hard to believe that anyone would want to harm it just to benefit his or herself. Unfortunately, this is exactly what we are doing. We have created something that has gotten so out of control that it is nearly impossible to stop now. As impossible as it seems, though, that is exactly what we need to do. Try to stop it. We need to invest more time and money in trying to find ways to have less of an impact on the environment. We need to try to develop ways in which we can live side by side with nature. We need to find ways in which we benefit as well as nature. Sadly, until we can do this, I have to agree that sometimes our own interests must come before nature’s whether we like it or not.
I think at the end of the day we need to remember that nature doesn’t need us as much as we need nature. Nature was here long before we were and the only thing it really needs from us is to try not to destroy everything. Nature essentially is what keeps us alive. If it weren’t for the trees and plants absorbing our carbon dioxide and producing oxygen for us to breathe, well, we would have died years and years ago. Nature is so much bigger than we are and we really need to do our best to save and preserve it.
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