I found a sand dollar today. It was nestled amongst plastic bags, and bottle caps, and various human debris washed up and left by the ocean, every low tide vomiting up the trash that humankind has shoved down its gullet.
It brings a certain painful dissonance, the beauty of the sea, and the ugliness of our poison. I saw miles and miles of trash, but I also saw pelicans and seagulls diving for fish, while dolphins, sharing in the feast, leapt in and out of the waves. Plovers and willets pecking and scurrying from the water in front of a sunset backdrop, the waves turning to an indescribable color – navy? Pink? Purple? Silver? A shimmering blanket hiding worlds below.
It makes me sick to see the evidence of our destruction in this scene. It makes me sad. It makes me feel hopeless.
Where is the last remnant of true wilderness? I hike and climb mountains to find it, and even at 12,000ft, the melancholy finds me. To be sure, it feels calmer out in the wild, below trees, away from any humans- the grind of day to day life feels less important. It eases the pain in my heart and mind. But I feel both peace and sorrow. An undertone of loss and nostalgia lies below the surface, as the knowledge of the state of our planet never quite leaves my mind. It drives me to action, just as the song of the birds and the stream drives me to stillness.
I also tend to harbor a distaste for other people I see on the trail, as if they cannot possibly comprehend the complex web of emotions that arises in me in places such as the mountains. It is of course a fallacy to think that I am alone in my feelings. Why should others not feel the same love of wild spaces? To be sure, I want them to. Perhaps if everyone spent more time in the cacophonous silence of the woods, they would make different choices in their daily lives. Again we run into fallacy – I myself am incapable of setting aside the corporate noise, and my own ambition, in favor of more time with nature. I myself contribute to the gluttonous machine of industrialism. How dare I judge others for the same?
I feel as though there are two parts of me at war. One part is the side of me that burns ferociously to be the best. The career woman, the powerful one who wants to be known and respected. This is the part of me that spent 8 years working night and day for two degrees, to get internships and research opportunities, and to ultimately get where I am today – a company that is widely renowned as one of the most difficult and technically impressive places to work in the country. This side of me is the one that wants to start a game-changing company or gather enough influence to legitimately change the world.
There there is the second half. This is the part that emerges among the trees and birds and wild places. This part of me wants to be forgotten by the world of industry, and politics, and the grind. She only wants to be known by the plants and animals and streams and rocks around her. She seeks slowness, introspection, and pure joy at the small things- sunlight on the weathered bark of an oak, a squirrel rooting for acorns, the smell of fallen leaves becoming earth. Is it possible to reconcile these two halves? Would it be enough to work a job that just pays the bills? Can a calm life be meaningful? Is a life among nature even possible in this day and age? Our wild spaces are disappearing as the corporate industrial machine grows exponentially, and the climate crisis rages in tandem, ignored in favor of greed and profit.
Is leading a life of quiet reflection the coward’s path, when one knows that the world is barreling towards its own destruction?