It’s
the Journey, Not the Destination
Without
sounding closed-minded I can safely say that in my early 20’s I subconsciously
had an anthropocentric mentality where I was naive about the relationship
between mother nature and humankind. If you were to ask me what an
anthropocentric philosophy meant in the year 2000, I would have given you my then
blond dyed hair reaction of “Umm… What?”
Only in retrospect 14 years later, after learning of the anthropocentric
philosophy in our classroom can I now realize that my mindset of regarding the human being as the central fact of the universe was my subconscious belief. Growing up in rural Minnesota one was inheritably
connected to nature as most residents were employed in agriculture and for many
outdoor activities of our state were a pastime. I always had respect and
appreciation for the environment and nature, however, I always felt that human
kind was superior to nature except for the weather and natural disasters.
Living in Minnesota
one was exposed to bitter and long winters where one could easily be stranded
in their home for days with no possibility of traveling the roads due to just
several inches of snow coupled with high winds. Summer weather brought warm and
beautiful weather along with the constant possibility of the immense power of
tornado's that obliterated farms and towns. These frequent acts of nature gave
me a glimpse of the power of nature in my own backyard, yet being so young and
living in a rural setting where I was 9 miles from the nearest town I never had
the freedom to traverse the roads during a blizzard and I was fortunate enough
to never witness the power of a tornado.
My
parents were hard working individuals who never had a desire or need to travel
before age 20 I had only travelled to three of Minnesota’s
neighboring states of South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Illinois.
When I reached adulthood I had a strong passion for travelling and with the
usual young twenty something spontaneity my three best friends and I booked a
hotel stay in Las Vegas
and planned to embark on our “Ultimate Road Trip.” During a treacherous
snowstorm in early February with semi-trailers jack- knifed along the freeway
we embarked on our journey to Nevada,
armed only with a Rand McNally road atlas and lots of financial aid money in
our pockets. It wasn’t until the second night of driving when we were
travelling through the Rocky Mountains in Colorado that I had a moment of how small
and insignificant that I truly was. Driving at an altitude of 8,000 feet in the
darkness I was going 65mph around a sharp curve with a giant wall of sheer rock
to my right side and a cliff to oblivion to my left side and at that moment I
realized that in an instant the mountains would consume me with one slip of the
steering wheel. This feeling only was magnified seconds later when the road
entered a tunnel blasted through the mountain; the rugged and blunt rocks
seemed surreal like a giant movie set. My friends and I were in awe with the
fact that we were INSIDE a mountain! We were overwhelmed by this experience and
it immediately caused me to lower my speed. In the span of less than a minute I
had gone from this individual believing that life had evolved around me and my
fellow race to that of the realization of how insignificant that I am in
relation to nature. I can only assume that Charles Darwin had this experience
as he travelled across the southern hemisphere on his voyage to map and observe
biology and geology. This moment is still vivid both physically and mentally to
me, for at that moment I realized that I was only a tiny fixture on this planet
and that my existence was of only a minute importance. Only now, 14 years later
can I intellectually coin the mentality that I possessed for so long. This
experience was only the beginning of many more to come along this journey and
throughout my lifetime.
Like
Darwin, every
new landscape on my driving excursion yielded new scenery and most of all
striking to me was the change of the geography and climate. Before this
excursion I never had the opportunity to witness various geography that I had
been taught in elementary school and now as an adult I was able to view it with
the intellect of adulthood. The grandness of the Rocky
Mountains consumed my tiny soul while the tranquility of the
southwest desert opened my mind and heart to the vastness of open space and
isolation that still has me yearning to explore it further. The dry riverbeds
of New Mexico
with their parched brown soil gave me excitement to see them rushing with water
after a desert thunderstorm. The most striking geography to me was the
southwest desert; the brown dry earth dotted with green cacti blooming with
spring flowers coupled with the classic tumbleweeds had me feeling as though I
had found my ideal environment to call home. Even to this day I still fantasize
about living in the desert, with hopes that one day I will experience this
landscape on a daily basis. This journey had become not only of celebration and
debauchery that I had planned, but more so of an awareness that this planet had
to offer me. The planet and its environment had given me the gift of awe,
excitement, and respect for life, before hand I was just merely stomping my
oblivious soul to the pulsating Earth below me.
Driving
every day for two weeks and clocking in 2,000 miles was more than just a
vacation for me; it was a birth to my personality and appreciation for mother
nature, the environment, and for our planet. Physically being able to walk in
the desert and plains of new environments planted a desire within me to live
and grow with nature. To this day I’m questioning why I moved to the concrete
jungle of a city where I am deprived of fresh air, scenery, and space that I
now so longingly pine for. This essay and class focus on the environment and
nature has put me back into touch with how growing up in an area where life was
greatly impacted by nature has reopened my strong desire to make my fantasy a
reality.
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