Nature as a Novelty

Daryl Alexsy

It is possible to live without direct interaction with nature. Aldo Leopold stresses the “spiritual dangers” in having dependence on other sources for heat and food, but for other people it would be more detrimental to have to supply both themselves. He describes the laborious task of starting his furnace in the February chapter, and such effort is unnecessary in our typical modern day society. Choosing to start a fire or growing food seems like a novelty and an inconvenience to me.

Nature has transformed in a way to something to provide amusement as opposed to something necessary to existence because technology has made living so far removed from the basics of nature. Rarely does one see where the food is coming from or where the heat is generated, so little thought is provided towards what nature had to do with it. Just like being able to identify plants in our local ecosystem, knowing such things are not actually essential to our existence.

Perhaps it is the guilt generated from having an ignorance for nature that has spurred the current trends in “going green”, because in most ways this is the only manner that people have to at some level interact with and be able to even in a small way do something for their environment. Despite the guilt, it is still possible to live without any real interaction with nature.