Nature

Is man losing touch with nature? Today, most people don’t spend enough time outdoors. I think back to a time when the outdoors was all man had, and wonder how we could have let ourselves stray so far from it. Even though nature is all around us, we don’t appreciate that nature should be our best friend. I worry that with each individual who does not spend time in nature will miss out on the physical and spiritual benefits it has to offer. For me, being in nature provides the most serene peace of mind, and my body feels strong, as if in it’s natural habitat. It saddens me knowing that there are many people in the world who will never understand that connection to nature. My frustrations with these people lead me to wonder, will people someday view being outside in a city as equal to being in “nature”?

Even though man may not spend as much time outside, we are spending our days on the same land, in the same world as always. Just because there are buildings and roads everywhere, does not mean that we don’t appreciate nature; It is our new nature to have these things. Who’s to say that a city is not a jungle of its own? Many productive animals in nature build colonies, isn’t that what humans are doing (just on a larger and more harmful scale)? With this change in human’s connection with nature, I fear that we will someday feel the same freedom when we stand in the middle of a city street and take in a smoggy breath of air as when we once stood on a mountaintop and breathed with the trees for the same effect.