Invaluable Nature

"Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. — Thomas Hobbes describing man’s life in the state of nature

Wilderness is not only valuable in our modern world, but it is also invaluable. Now it is important to define the difference between invaluable and valuable, as it can be subtle, however in my opinion, not in this case. Try and think of it this way: valuable usually applies to things that have monetary value, while invaluable usually applies to things that can’t be valued in monetary terms.

The smell of a cedar swamp, the aroma of a field of summer grass ripening in the sun, or the sounds of a lake's shore washed by waves hold no monetary or treasure value, but speak a higher language to the human soul, the spirit. Thus, nature holds the invaluable within itself.

Until very recently, humans have not had much time to spend in the appreciation of the profound lessons that nature's primitive places offer them. In the above notable quote worth sharing here once again, Thomas Hobbes eloquently states man’s life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” thus highlighting the fact that in most ways, human life is filled with the struggle to survive against dangers that wilderness offered—disease, oppressive weather, limited resources, even wild beasts. 

Humankind, often working as rugged individuals, carved out a place in the wilderness, and I believe civilized themselves enough to have learned to understand that the remaining pockets of it needed protection. 

At least, some people have this attitude, and those people are invaluable to the human race. However, many people in charge of important things still measure only what holds monetary value.

So spend a little time with what is valuable and invaluable, and drink in what those feel like, and what you would need more of in a deep and satisfying way.

Borders, or Chalk Outlines in the Sand.

“The best way to look at countries on a map is like a chalk outline drawn by the police when someone dies… what you are seeing with the borders are just outlines of historical crimes… past warlords… empires… its nothing to be loyal to. Have loyalty to reason, to evidence, to ideals… not to lines drawn up mostly by criminals.” — Stefan Molyneux

I agree with almost zero of what Molyneux usually says--and less of what he stands for--however, somehow this quote strikes a chord with me. Even a blind pig finds an apple on occasion. 

Countries are basically these magically attached, by mostly invisible lines, defining chunks of land. They are then united by historical thefts, atrocities, and other criminal behaviors. For example, the United States of America basically stole the southwest part of the country, including California, from Spain. Spain stole it before that from the Native Americans that lived there previously, and even those people overtook it from earlier tribal nations such as the Anasazi nations.

So why is this important? In my humble opinion, it reflects the human need to define itself in all matters of existence, to establish it's tribe, determine it's social and cultural norms, to inclusively segregate. The need to isolate not only cultural and social norms from differing ones that may lie across an invisible, magically determined line is somewhat a recent problem in relation to enforcement. Migration, emigration, immigration, famine, war, and other triggering events have always moved populations of people from place to place.

It seems that the real compassionate question that is not being dealt with is how to get along as a people who share so much in similar human characteristics, yet divide themselves so sharply in cultural, social or religious concepts. The figurative wall that needs to be built would be one filled with bricks of understanding, the mortar of social exploration and designed with open communication of shared values and possibilities of positive growth.

You still might have to place some guards here and there, to ensure some circumstantial and situational incursions of "bad" elements along parts of the wall are addressed, but if you build it with no way to see and engage the humanity of others, is it worth it?