My mom used to mall walk. Well, not in a mall. My mom used
to mall walk in my high school after hours. If that makes sense. She’d go round
and round and round the second floor. She’d stare at the same lockers. Breathe
in the same, musty air.
My mom was also on a committee to build a nature walk
through the outskirts of my home town. The phrase “build a nature walk” is
contradictory to me. And also seemingly to Bill McKibben. For humans to build
an almost sidewalk like construction through what could be considered
wilderness, tames it. Makes it no longer wilderness, but a human-tainted park.
When McKibben references walking through Mill Creek, he says it was, “… changed
profoundly as when it shifted from pristine and untracked wilderness to mapped
and deeded and cultivated land.”
Bill McKibben seems to feel the way I do, that true wilderness
and nature is now even harder to find. In his words, we have built a “human
creation,” and have destroyed the wild. So my question for you is, do you think
we can still find wilderness, even with our destruction and power?
Evening, tallberrybee. *Looks around* Class. You raise highly valid points concerning nature and the wilderness only half-surrounding us. I would like to comment on your first two paragraphs before tackling this complex issue at hand, your question.
ReplyDeleteI do understand the term "mall walk" and its impact on the way we act outside of malls. It tends to evolve through a frame of mind rather than the true location of the walk. In a sense, it is often like window shopping overlapping with a self-guided tour inside the minds of passersby (see, "People watching"). I believe this, especially in your mother's case, is sense of belonging within a community by means of one's past. Granted, I only assume she also went to this high school, by chance? If not, it can function as either connecting to a general community or reaching back into her own memories, retroactive belonging.
As for this term "nature walk", it does seem like an oxymoron in today's sense within the Western world. To make the term more obvious to those who could be confused, think about "reality TV" now. It is a construction of what would be the anticipated lives of the participants for the audience. A nature walk is pure construction and an act made to immerse people in "nature" simpler so they get outside and enjoy the day as the day...little do they know that if they see a trail, it isn't terribly na-tur-al.
Okay. The BIG one. Here we go: Kind of...is my answer. The truth to that complexity is the subjective definition to "wilderness". Obviously, one can see it through the lens of nature and our literal environment. But the most fascinating option is taking wilderness as a mental state, much like tallberrybee's mother in the high school. The near (and I do not agree with this assuming connection, so pardon) childlike wander can easily be named "wilderess" while being completely apt. So in this creative sense, yes. We can find wilderness by the mechanism of imagination and wander. As for a literal sense, we'd have much more trouble. There are locations, regions within numerous countries varying in landscape and climate, that have complete wilderness. Yet, I need to stress, the impact of climate change is still evident in these closed-off, virtually no contact locations. "Things haven't changed here for 500 years...besides the world becoming its own burning meteor."
Thanks for the discussion and let it continue to wave freely.
-PanLibDem
ReplyDeleteI think we can always find wilderness, because of our power and because of our destruction. Wilderness is inside everyone. It’s natural. It's nature. It’s what makes us human.
“True wilderness” is a term that reminds me of the old saying “if a tree falls and there’s no one around to hear it, did it make a noise?” It seems like it’d be hard to find true wilderness if the human experience taints it. Would an abandoned lot reclaimed by nature not be considered true wilderness because it included man made materials? Even if it was overgrown and lush with plants? Is a trail unnatural as you say, just because it’s created by humans? Animals create trails and tunnels and paths as well. Is that unnatural? Are humans not animals?