Walden (Four of the Essays)

Out of the many essays in Thoreau's novel, Walden, the two that I enjoyed reading so far are "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" and "The Village". On the very first day of class, I wrote down that I wanted to understand more about how I am connected to Nature in a spiritual/religious manner. In the two essays I mentioned, Thoreau illustrates a philosophical view of Nature.

"Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere"

He has a unique world view. To Thoreau, the earth is a sacred place blessed by gods and goddesses! A home is but a seat and not a material necessity; Nature is a part of us and vice versa. It is interesting to note that the word 'nature' does not only mean the phenomena of the physical world collectively, but it also means the essential and inherent features of something/someone. In other words, the nature of being human is to live simply. Thoreau makes a valid case.

In "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For," Thoreau weaves in and out of Nature itself and the metaphysical realm. He states that "The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us...Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me" Thoreau makes a metaphor with regards to waking in the morning and having a wakeful mentality throughout the day. In addition, one of my favorite sections from this essay reads:

"It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour"

I personally think that this will be my new focus for my dancing. Usually, I tell a story through a dance solo, but what if I was a sunrise? or a sunset?  What if I portrayed deeper/spiritual experiences of life?

"Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently without perturbation"

In "The Village," Thoreau explains, "for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost - do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature." In order to understand ourselves, we must lose our social constructs and sense of conformity. We need to see each day as a new experience. A mystery.

Chapter 4 - Lightly, Carefully, Gracefully

The final chapter of Eaarth, by Bill McKibben, is a bittersweet one. After stating all of the statistics, all of the personal stories, all of the drastic changes that are happening on this new Eaarth, McKibben illustrates the possible strategies for maintaining our world and our lives. Early in this chapter he states that, "the amount of people with too little to eat is now rising." Food is one of our most basic resources that we need to survive. And currently, "it takes the equivalent of four hundred gallons of oil annually to feed an American, and that's before packaging, refrigeration, and cooking." Why is it so complicated, ineffective, and harmful to our economy? It is obvious that we have to change our system of agriculture. The cost of shipping food to stores across the world adds up to be more than the price of growing food locally opposed to what most people think.

        I enjoyed reading Pete Johnson's innovative plan for growing food - having a moveable greenhouse which would be local, less expensive, and healthy. McKibben is right, we need small farmers throughout the country to make the change we need. In short, he states that we don't have a choice. Compared to China, we eat way more meat than we should and it's costing us. Plus, I know for a fact that I don't buy local foods when I should. I stick to the fast-food chains in Kalamazoo because they are inexpensive and quick. In this chapter, I was surprised that the people in the reality series Frontier House said that they rather live on the frontier but instead moved back to live in the suburbs.
         McKibben explains that we as human-beings need a controlled decline; we need the wisdom from the past and the knowledge of the present to hunker down and change the planet for the better. At the conclusion of the book, McKibben describes the Internet as being one of the best resources we have in our fight against global warming because of it's ability to connect neighbors. I strongly agree with this. People use the Internet more than ever now and could help make small changes here and there.

       My final thoughts:

• For one I am amazed at how much information McKibben as collected and has documented in this novel. It's incredible!
• The fact that he started out connecting his neighborhood and then made his awareness viral is truly inspiring.
• He has given me a few great ideas for the future - conserve, buy local, and make small changes daily to reduce emissions

For the song I have chosen for this final chapter, I need to give a brief description of how I discovered it and why I chose it. A couple years ago I watched all of the Harry Potter movies for the first time and one song stuck with me. The song is so different and so powerful for being in one of the final movies that I had to replay the scene over and over again. The meaning of the song is really up for interpretation, enjoy!

The link to the clip is here: O'Children Harry Potter

The link to the whole song is here: O'Children by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Chapter 3 - Backing Off

In chapter 3 of Eaarth, McKibben envisions the world as being durable, strong enough to support what we already have instead of reaching for economic growth. In the United States, we grew quickly. We accomplished our National Project that involved exploring the west and increasing revenue. A national government was created along with a national bank that made it possible for the building of public roads and railroads. We owned land, we owned resources, and we owned people. We accomplished a few notable National Projects, such as putting a man on the moon. But it is time to maintain rather than expand. The government can't do everything. McKibben illustrates that it is up to the local economies to build community. He points out that as it is right now, our economy works without the input of our neighbors (which is depressing if you think about it). In reality though, we need to reshape our society for a graceful decline. McKibben sold this concept to me personally when he discusses the history of Vermont. The historian Peter Onuf states that, "nowhere in America did local communities become so thoroughly accustomed to such a high degree of political self-determination [than those in Vermont]." For much of history, the people of Vermont maintained control of the state and it's laws. My favorite section in this chapter is about McKibben's summary of the Family Diner, a restaurant that uses local farm products for the menu items. How many restaurants are similar to the Family Diner in Michigan? Now that I think about it, there are only a few I've been to. I realize now that what we as Americans eat, what we wear, the products we use day to day aren't that real and authentic.
All in all, I agree with McKibben's proposals. We do need to focus on the essentials and maintain the small communities we have. If we focus on growth and expansion, our resources will diminish and we'll be lost on this new Eaarth.

The song for chapter 3 of Eaarth is here!

Chapter 2 - High Tide

Since chapter 1 was pretty depressing I thought I'd throw in some comics before I discuss chapter 2!
Spoiler alert: The Eaarth has not gotten any better.

In chapter 2 Eaarth, McKibben discusses globalization and how it has been enforcing global warming. I first am amazed at how long transformations take! McKibben explains that even though industries started to burn coal, it took almost a century before coal was burned more than wood in the United States. Growth has always been the focus of globalization. Each year, we have to produce more as a nation and in so doing use more of our limited natural resources. But, infrastructure is usually pushed aside. In the recent years, global warming has produced more weather-related issues: floods, hurricanes, etc. With weak infrastructure, there is no time to recover. Besides infrastructure, insurance is needed for the increase in diseases that are the result of global warming.

My main concern is the availability of gasoline in the coming years. McKibben's discussion of Limits to Growth, written in 1972, is interesting. Have we already reached the peak of our oil reserves? If the cost of gasoline rises, will more people switch to hybrids and electric cars? I think I will, eventually.

At the conclusion of chapter 2, McKibben states two steps that we should take, mature and jettison. I think about my job as a delivery driver and how that affects the added waste of food containers and global warming as the result of emitting carbon dioxide. I ask myself, what are the ripple effects that I contribute to?

My song for chapter 2 is here!

Chapter 1 - A New World

In the first chapter of Eaarth, Bill McKibben illustrates the earth as a different, changed planet given the name Eaarth. The beautiful blue earth we once knew from the Apollo 8 picture "Earthrise":

 is no longer the planet we live on. McKibben addresses his readers with a straightforward approach, and it works. I'm not lying when I say, when I first started reading this book, I was not as aware of global warming or climate change. It was so lightly discussed in my science classes in middle school that I didn't care about it at all. But it means more to me now. Simply, global warming is happening to the entire planet and affects everyone and everything. The burning of fossil fuels have raised the temperature of the environment causing an increase in rainfall, acidity of the seas, methane gas leaks from the frozen tundra, the melting of the glaciers at the poles, etc. The effects that I didn't know about sparked my interest! I find it ironic when McKibben stated, "The idea that humans could fundamentally alter the planet was new." Reading this book now I feel that I am going to be responsible for global warming in the coming years and will truly see the changes. Scratch that, I have already seen the changes. The fact that McKibben wrote this book about ten years ago is astonishing because many societal issues haven't changed at all.

The most important point that McKibben made, in my opinion, was 

"If you got a spare month some time, google global warming and grandchildren."

After reading that I felt the urgency in his tone and I felt guilty for adding to the carbon dioxide in the air that is causing global warming. I was also touched by the fact that having grandchildren is so far into the future for me, decades. How can I, myself, help to sustain our environment for the future?

Chapter 1 was eye-opening for me because it states an important truth, the earth is not the same as it was and will never be as it was. Depressing, but true.

I have decided to link a song for each of my Eaarth posts. The first is below!

Earth Song

So we saunter...

Reflection of "Walking" by Henry David Thoreau

       I want to first illustrate that "Walking" was a pleasure to read and I highly recommend it to everyone. Thoreau's writing is as beautiful as Nature itself and I can guarantee there is something in this essay that will inspire you.

     A brief summary: In Thoreau's essay "Walking," originally given as part of a lecture, he contemplates the idea of walking as a parcel of Nature. Walking then becomes an adventure and not a means of getting somewhere; It becomes a part of every aspect of life and elicits spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being.

During the walk we did as a class, I experienced what Thoreau describes as being free from all worldly engagements. I found that walking without thinking about waking up just in-time for class or working all night after class, was refreshing to say the least! I noticed things on campus I haven't discovered before - pieces of the stone whale were broken off and that seeds were planted for the brewing class, for instance. Thoreau explains that the environment you find yourself in influences your thoughts and can lead to new experiences. If you think about it, where do people go on vacation? Places away from home, places that are warmer or more beautiful this time of year. Thoreau even portrays that a circle of ten miles' radius will never become quite familiar to you. A person could walk to the same place each day and still find that Nature can change dramatically. While reading, one of my favorite movies came to mind and is worth mentioning. Good Will Hunting, starring Robin Williams and Matt Damon, emphasizes the importance of experiencing new activities and not just reading about them in a book. With regards to personal anecdotes, I loved reading the section on page 238 that starts with "I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that our thoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, as our sky...," because it highlights the role of Nature in our lives as American citizens. In the broader aspect of Nature, Thoreau states that, "Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest." and "all good things are wild and free". Thoreau perceives Nature as an intrinsic part of being human. Take dance for instance (not like it's my passion or anything). A dancer captures my attention when he/she can perform a move I can't or does it in a way that is different from me. In this case, the wilder the better!

I think that the most inspiring passages in "Walking" are on pages 249 and 250 when Thoreau illustrates the need for a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance. Sometimes I have to remind myself that there is no perfection, there's almost never one right answer and all others are wrong. Also, it is more important to realize that there is so much to discover than believing that all things known are facts.

"Which is the best man to deal with,--he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?" - Thoreau

For me, I am still figuring out where I fit in the range between society and Nature. Above all, I enjoyed reading Thoreau's vivid depictions of Nature and the walks he has been on and lastly...

"So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bank-side in autumn"

Ambulator nascitur, non fit

Happy People Refrain (based on "The Audit")

The blog below is about "The Audit" in the form of a J Cole song! A link to the actual song is here

• Warning - The lyrics in the actual song are explicit and are in (many, okay all) J Cole songs.

"Your Dream" Lyrics

in the style of J Cole's "Love Yourz":

Your dream

Your dream

[Hook]:

Dark and divine miles, before I sleep

Dark and divine miles, before I sleep

Sleep no one, sleep no one

[Verse]:

Your life is yours to live, dream it right

US endorsement, GCA

Ain't we all the same, breathing through the night

Can't accept the life your living, just change the terms of service brother

Goes for all y'all

Just change the terms of service brother

(Let me explain)

Change the terms of service, carve a poem in the grass

Look at the footprint math or fix your schedule of events

Bill grew up in the suburbs and life was moving fast

Compared to Goodwin Brown, Bill was a f****** mess

And life can't be no poem, no Robert Frost design

But I would die if Bill can't see who's lying

Why does Goodwin have his needs and is able to sing?

Why can't you believe and live your dream?

Cause beliefs you should find

The emissions from your home from the car you drive

My broadcast is 'you've got to change your ways'

Carve poems in the yard and dream your reality

[Hook] x1

[Outro Verse]:

Your life is yours to live, dream it right

US endorsement, GCA

Ain't we all the same, breathing through the night

[End]

           I think that many people forget how simple life really is. If people would only carve their lives differently than how society says we should, then the world would be a better place. Think about it: people in other countries are only miles away. The world is like your backyard; if it is mowed the same every time, it will stay the same but a yard mowed differently will change and can carve a beautiful poem.