Monday, May 12, 2014

Essay #2

Although I enjoyed writing this essay, it was quite challenging for me. I'm so used to writing about facts and information that being creative with descriptions was more out of my way of thinking. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to explore this form of writing as hopefully it will tap into my more creative writing style.



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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