My Fourth of July weekend consisted of my wife and I devoting our time to nature, while everyone was devoting their time to blowing shit up and doing the particular Fourth of July rituals Industrial Civilization tells us we should do in order to “celebrate” the holiday.
Notice how I put the word celebrate in quotes because I don’t see what there is to celebrate since this is the empire that will end all empires in human history and end the human species.
But this is not what I want to touch on. I want to talk about my weekend in Tallulah Falls, Georgia. It was a weekend where I felt like it was the first time in a very long time I was allowed to get lost in nature. There was no mega city close by or its sprawling suburbs to soak up. It was just me, my wife, and my dog surrounded by wooded mountains, waterfalls, and pristine rivers and lakes.
I finally got the peace and quiet of nature I have been needing. Getting lost in nature to me is not going to a park that’s a few miles in length but is surrounded by Industrial Civilization.
Getting lost in nature is not hearing cars or airplanes or people blasting music over covered picnic tables. It’s being able to feel yourself think and getting lost in the natural sounds of the world all around you. It’s letting time stand still and taking in what’s in front of you. It’s leaving your headphones at home and burying your cell phone in your pocket because you don’t need a distraction, instead you’re getting a reaction from the beauty and sounds in front of you.
In the log cabin my wife and I stayed in there was a little gravel path you walked down that led to an area of grass that ran right along the Tallulah River. One morning I brought my dog down there and as we got to the grass I see a little head poke up from the river to eye me and my dog. This was the head of an otter. As the otter and I looked at each other my thoughts started to race. I felt connected to the otter and to the land in that moment. I felt more connected to this land than any sports team I love or city I have been in. It made me reflect on where I have been in life and where I want my life to go.
I need a breather from this culture and I need to distance myself from this insane rat race as I feel myself and my life being put into a cheese grater. It’s a grind, most people hate it, and this grind is killing us. The United States is on course for the lowest average life expectancy levels of all the rich countries worldwide, and will be on par with Mexico by 2030.
So when I think of Industrial Civilization I look at it as an open concept house. And for all of my life I have been in the kitchen that opens up to the living room helping myself to whatever I need, whenever I need it. This is the area of the house that people fully immerse themselves in and where all the activity goes on. Frankly, I am tired of fully immersing myself in Industrial Civilization and seeing all the life killing activities that go on with it.
With that being said I depend on this house for shelter and survival just as I depend on Industrial Civilization for shelter and survival. But what I want to do is distance myself from it and go to a different area of the house.
I want to go to the back of the house where the guest room is located. This way I can get some peace and quiet and hear about the activities going on in the kitchen and living room if I want to, but am no longer immersed in it. I can still go to the living room or kitchen if I need to, but it’s not going to be home base anymore. In my guest room with me will be bears, otters, birds singing, mountains full of greenery as far as the eye can see, and waterfalls showing me the way from one adventure to the next.
Nature once was in the living room and kitchen of the house due to the large areas of pristine land we could find community and connectivity in. Industrial Civilization has moved from the guest room, has taken over the kitchen and living room, and has banished Nature into the small guest room.
So that’s what I have realized when I saw this otter in the river looking at me, I want to go into the small guest room with Nature while I can because soon enough this death culture aka Industrial Civilization is going to try to evict Nature from the house.
I know what the future holds, but screw it, I want to do everything I can to help Nature bring chaos to the house Industrial Civilization has taken over and take back what was rightfully Nature’s. After all, we belong in Nature, and Industrial Civilization is a terrorizing head of household.
This all makes my wonder why have we lost our connection with the land? I think it’s our obsession with city dwelling. We live in cities and the large surrounding suburbs and grind through life as we have never grinded before all in hopes we get the last ten to fifteen years of our lives to do all the things we have wanted to do before we hit our expiration date.
When we take a break from our grind we go to another city to bask in someone else’s grind. We compare that grind to our grind. This grind, Chicago, has the John Hancock Building. That grind, New York, has the Statue of Liberty. Rarely do I see people compare the wildlife of Illinois to the wildlife of New York. This is because we have disconnected ourselves from that wildlife even though we depend on it for our survival.
We take solace in symbols and structures of capitalism instead of streams and sequioas of living societies.
So I ask you instead of going to Miami, Los Angeles, or New York, go to the mountains, the prairies, or the forest. Get lost in nature. Put down the headphones, cell phones, games, and music speakers. No boating, fishing, or hunting allowed. Just walk and use your eyes and ears, don’t use your mouth. See and hear what’s around you. And maybe instead of wondering what will it be like when you get to your heaven,!you will realize this is heaven. It’s at this point you will realize you belong in nature.
My wife and I realized that over the weekend, we realized it’s time to start planning on living in the mountains in Georgia, North Carolina or Tennessee. I don’t know when or how we will do this, or what it’s all going to look like, but I know it’s where we belong; it’s our heaven.
