I love technology. I love my computer, email, the Web and the fact that I can create my own weblog. I love gps, digital television, my cell phone and recording music digitally. I love the Hubble telescope, lasers in all of their applications and even airport scanners. But as I spend more time on this planet I become more aware that as a race (the human one) we would be wise aware of our place in the natural world as we reach for the technological stars.
We live in an age in which sociologists have coined the term "Nature Deficit Disorder" to describe the lack of connection at that our children have with the natural world. Children are being raised to experience the world "virtually" through television, computers, cd's, dvds, video gaming in all its forms. There are those who suggest that children (and aren't we all children?) need direct experiences with the outside natural environment to fully develop emotionally
and even spiritually. These writers believe that we need to experience directly the change of seasons, watch flowers bloom and leaves fall, explore creeks, climb trees, step in mud puddles and wonder at spiderwebs . We need to observe the flight of birds, the antics of wildlife in its natural habitat, notice the path of rainfall, witness the sunrise and the sunset. We need to get reacquainted with the notions that things change, seasons turn, organisms are born, perform their role in the circle of life and die. And that this is all part of an intricate, intelligent, miraculous Plan.
From our actions and behaviors, we humans appear to be unapologetically arrogant, assuming that the Earth needs us. It doesn't. If we should blast ourselves out of existence or contribute to creating an environment that no longer sustains our life forms, the Earth will undoubtably move on, getting over us like a bad relationship.
If, in the coming decades, we can ground our creativity and intelligence with the wisdom that nature offers, perhaps we can access internally the humility that nature requires of us. If we can walk in this balance, between Nature and Technology, our limits will be set only by the boundries of our imagination. Who knows "what dreams may come?"
We are stardust. We are golden. We are billion-year-old carbon.
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden.
- Joni Mitchell "Woodstock"
