Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Natural Beauty
Today we talked about what natural beauty means. I believe that the meaning of natural beauty can be different for different people. Natural beauty, in my opinion, symbolizes purity and awe. When I think about natural beauty, I picture nature how it was before humans touched it in any way. I see the vastness and amazing creation by God. Picturing the first idea of nature makes me think about how small humans are and how amazing and overpowering nature can be. Humans could easily be wiped out by nature, but humans are slowly destroying aspects of nature as well. This makes me think that humans and nature are battling back and forth. Humans continue to live their lives however they want whether it is harmful to nature or not. Nature in return is dying off, but it is also fighting back in a way. One way nature is fighting back is through global warming. The GAIA hypothesis can be seen through this in the way that the earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Humans have been allowed to thrive and multiply as much as they want. Now that the earth is running out of resources to sustain humans, it is changing and will sooner or later not allow humans to remain as they currently are. I believe that we have lost the natural beauty that once was found everywhere. Today, it is hard to even find a glimpse of it without it having an artificial influence. Humans have tried to preserve some parts of nature in wildlife reserves and other things like that, but it is obvious that there is still some human impact.
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The World, or Gaia is trying to continue to be a self regulating being, and Global warming could be seen as an attempt to bring the global environment back to an equilibrium. Man has done so much to strip nature of its raw power and beauty that its not irrational to believe that it may be gone forever. By removing the man made dimension of nature, we can return nature to its true form and thrive in its riches.(Food and other resources)When you go on a hike through a nature reserve, you arent looking for the new stair cases and hand rails, you are looking for stairs that nature itself has cut out of a hillside, or a rock formation. True beauty is natural beauty.
ReplyDeleteWhat humans often fail to recognize when considering Gaia's regulation -or anything else, for that matter- is simply the laws of physics: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Nothing in this world happens in a vacume and nothing we can do will not have consequences. When we let our consumption of energy get out of control, when we release harmful chemicals into the air, when we throw a plastic bottle in the trash, there are always consequences, always equal an opposite reactions. I think this is why Gaia is a self regulating superorganism. When an anomic state is achieved, the earth must compensate -there is no alternative. This is what I think natural beauty is. Natural beauty is the earth's constant amending of imbalance. Have you ever seen a forest five years after a forest fire? Or the land just a few months after a volcanic eruption? Or have you ever seen a tree that grew up from a crack in the sidewalk and is now breaking the concrete with its powerful roots? This is natural beauty. It shows us our place when we get too cocky and shows us that something as "primitive" as a flower or a bird can rival the most talented artist. Perhaps in this way, natural beauty is God's way of communicating and Gaia's correcting for imbalances sends us messages regarding our actions.
ReplyDeleteTrue beauty is natural beauty. These days when you walk outside in a park you are often overwhelmed by all of the man-made "delights" we have formed. One is often destracted by these things that consume the earth. You can hrdly enjoy peace and quiet, for it is hard to find a place thats obtains that. Flowers and gardens are often overflown with garbage and impurities that make even the prettiest things in life somewhat ugly.
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