When I was walking with the dog this evening, I took a few pictures from around the neighbourhood. Spring has just started here, with the trees still not with all of their leaves and there is a lot of dusty brown patches everywhere, but in the evening sunshine, it still looks pretty lovely.
I actually count myself lucky to live in a place where nature is relatively clean, the air is breathable and if game, it would be quite possible to drink from the majority of the lakes without too much hassle - though, I wouldn't do it unless necessary. I have done it once when I had gone for a jog, got dehydrated and started cramping. I drank from the lake and was eating blueberries from the forest. I felt a bit like Bear Grylls, except I wasn't desperate enough to drink my own urine.
Nature is obviously important to our existence, so we really should take better care of it. So much of what is actually important to humanity is destroyed for profit, including our own wellbeing. While I hold little hope for the future, I do believe that the world could be a pretty amazing place if we redirected our attention and resources to doing what grows our wellbeing. This would include all facets of the environment, but also consider the needs of individual health and education, and energy needs and innovation. We spend so much of our potential holding onto and widening the status quo direction, which is always going to end at the same point, our self-destruction.
It saddens me that here we are with the most information we have ever had available and even with the current quality, is enough to make the world brilliant, but we waste it. I get it that a few hundred years ago things were quite different, but today, we should know better. Instead, we just keep on doing much the same as those who have come before us, just with better, more destructive tools to do it more efficiently. We are great at polluting. We are great at killing each other. We are great at putting profit first.
It is pretty pathetic really, but as I walk around the neighbourhood, this is what I think about. All the opportunity in the world, yet we waste it. I don't think we are ever going to get over our flaws fast enough to stop the inevitability of our self-destruction, and I don't think most people will even try. When I talk to people, despite them wanting a better world, most seem reigned to staying the course, because it is easier. We are choosing to go down with the ship, while we are drilling into the hull.
Taraz
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Could not do that around here, the water doesn't flow fast enough and it's swamp at best and reconstituted duck crap at worst XD
When I was running my own business and trying really hard to build the "alternative" lifestyle that I wanted, I kind of felt like "the systems" weere deliberately designed to force people to stay soley in their lanes (on bad days I feel like sometimes it even tries to stop people changing lanes meaningfully) and do exactly as they're told and while it theoretically didn't stop you it really felt all but impossible to do anything other than that so I'm not surprised that most people "stay the course" because trying to do anything else is an endless uphill battle and it's exhausting.
today I'm hovering between still being pretty damn furious that I didn't fully achieve the lifestyle I wanted and pretty content because we did manage bits of it and life is pretty good
I'm sure a lot of people will immediately try to put it out of their minds because it probably makes them feel bad/not quite as good people as they would like to believe about themselves but talking to them about it would at least make them think a bit if nothing else and hopefully give them a little nudge.
Unlike you I'm completely useless at talking so I just keep trying to show that a lot of things are entirely possible if you only invent excuses for some things rather than literally everything.
Yeah, I wouldn't drink from that stream, as it flows through behind many houses. But, it pours out into a large lake and I reckon diluted enough to be okay :)
Absolutely. The system isn't designed for the "average person" to get ahead, which is why most people are in trouble and the "non-average" are often twisted individuals who have sex slave islands.
Totally understandable. At the moment, I think I am still in the furious arena.
You know what is interesting? I am great at talking about other things when I am not the focus, but terrible at selling myself. Nowadays, people don't seem to care about what you can do in reality, just what you can say you can do.
Well unless there's something you're not telling us you didn't die so XD
Sounds like it sometimes. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, just keep using that rage for good ;D
at least that's what I'm telling myself to do when I feel it coming up again x_x
Not just "nowadays" unless you're counting at least two decades back. This is the exact reason I could never get a job "normally" (ie applying and getting an interview and being impressive enough to get hired).
Pushing idiot youths off of electric scooters.
It has gone up a level. Probably because all the "personal branding" activity on social media.
That's entertaining not necessarily good XD
Ergh.
It's all about money. I don't see us being worried about the more important things until that becomes less important. Leaves are starting to pop up here as well. I will be happy when they fully fill in and the view of the neighbors house behind us is obscured.
The capital system is broken, because it sees money as capital. Capital should be limited to the physical only, not the conceptual. Human capital, environmental capital.
Yes, good points!
I feel like our local nature protections are pretty good, but zoom out onto federal level and those have been severely rolled back under the current administration.
And then zoom out to the global level, and it is a shocking mess.
The first photo is beautiful. You just gave me an idea. From now on, I'll be posting photos of the same place at different times of the year and writing about different thoughts. Nature is the best artist.
I think it is interesting how the shifting environment shifts our thoughts. I write a lot about life through this observation.
I disagree! Because nature just does things, while an artist needs to have intention. This is part of why AI-generated art is not artistic. The prompter has very little control over the result, despite their beliefs.
Yes, the same place can be so different.
Capturing the perfect second of natural colors is a creative endeavor in itself :)
This I agree with :)
There are parts of the pacific northwest river network where you absolutely do not drink the water. Mining contamination, including lead, have created severe hazards. It's a shame our ancestors often didn't know, and sometimes just didn't care, what the long-term consequences of their actions would be.
Yeah. It wasn't "that long ago" where many of the lakes were contaminated by the paper factories, but these days, most are clean. Finland also has very old environmental laws, which were introduced to ensure there was always forest, rather than it being logged. And interestingly, most of the forest for logging is privately owned, so the paper and wood companies buy it from families every generation or two.
People who own forests tend to treat it like a long-term crop. People who lease logging rights in national forests want to get as much as they can, and damn the mess it leaves behind. Some timber companies here brag about how they are good stewards of their owned forests, too. How much you believe them is up to you,but then again, their claims can be verified, too.
Exactly. They clean the forests to optimize growth, but also to optimize grow back.
I don't believe the paper companies, but I do have friends who own forest and they do what is necessary.
I didn't see that double space and "along" typo until you quoted it. Ouch.
Before it is too late, I think it is important that we shift our focus towards sustainability and well-being instead of profit-driven motives.
Unfortunately, not going to happen.
Cool beautiful scenery. True what you write "we should continue to do almost the same thing as those who have gone before us". Meaning we need to preserve the environment what they have done. If we protect the environment, the environment Will also protect US. See the experience in our own country. The environment is damaged, forest are cut down, and the impact when it rains is flooding. One person benefits and many people suffer. Thank you @tarazkp
This is the world we support.
Agree with your opinion. Loving the environment starts with small things and start with US. Thanks so much.
Your photography skills are too good, which Camera or Mobile you use for it?
That 4th pic is so realistic, as I am watching with my own Eyes.
Thanks for sharing these wonderful photos and you experience during your walk.
As a human when we think so well about the future at first before doing anything we want to do, we will understand we don't need to put profit our first priority for things to be better because it's will definitely brings self destruction of our plans