The first time I got to touch the ocean was last summer, when I was in Panama. Half of my time there was spent living, among a tribe of Kuna people on their island Aquadup. While helping with daily chores one day, my friend turned to me and said, “What’s your favorite thing about nature?” You can image that living on a tropical island; there were thousands of things around me that I could have chosen. While I was looking at my surroundings trying to come up with an answer,
I remembered that the nature on the island that I thought was so beautiful in that moment, is the same nature that terrified us at night. Forks of lightning that crack and lung towards the island, thunder that rattles the hut and rain that pounds though the roof. After thinking about this I told her, “I like things that remind me how small I am”. For instance the ocean can be so beautiful, fun to explore and enjoy. It also though has a reputation for being destructive though, and being home to animals such as sharks and whales. Looking out at ocean reminds me that even though it is beautiful it also has the power to destroy, and that demands a certain kind of respect.
Living in the city sometimes it is easy to forget that there are things that people cannot control. In the city everything is built for people by people, and people control and manage what they have created. We are reminded of how small we are though, when a storm hits and wipes out all that we have created in a matter of minutes. I don’t mean small in a bad way though, I just mean it is easy for us to get arrogant and think we are invinsible, we forget that there is SO much we don’t know.
When you look at our galaxy we aren’t even a speck in the Milky Way. We don’t even know close to everything about our planet or even ourselves, none the less our galaxy! I embrace the small feeling. It’s a humbling experience to be reminded that no one knows everything and the big problems we worry about and have in our lives may not be a big as we think.
I love the night sky. I'm really in to astronomy, and I love looking up at the constellations and seeing just how insignificant my problems are. The vastness of nature is astounding. Thanks for reminding me once again:)
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of the sun and the water, I don't care who you are you can't feel bad lying down on a sandy beach. As for your post the final paragraph is being covered up by the surrounding images.
ReplyDeleteI have always loved dinosaurs and the prehistoric world and I learned early on from the dinosaurs how arrogant and how little we really know or understand our world. Dinosaurs ruled the world for over 150 million years (since birds are dinosaurs and there are over 9 000 of them compared to the 4 500 mammals dinosaurs still rule this planet) while man has only really had control over his world for less than 10 000 years and if we don't smarten up our rule is going to end very soon. Your blog reminds me of lyrics from an Animaniacs song called Yakkos Universe, it goes like this:
ReplyDelete"It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
It's big and black and inky
And we are small and dinky
It's a big universe and we're not."