[Reik Mohican]

Synopsis: A brief essay inspired by a brief sit in the woods



In every living thing on the planet, there is an undesirable side that is rarely seen. Things that are unwanted are hidden or destroyed. The parts of life that are beautiful are highlighted by frames and put in prominent places, but you will never see a photograph of a dead rabbit hanging from a wall. At first, it appears to be only humans that practice this glorification of all things beautiful, but that is not the case. Nature itself chooses to appeal to our perception of beauty.

In the heart of the woods there is beauty all around you. But if you look close enough, you see that mixed in with the flowers and bright green leaves is an ugly brown mud. The forest hides the mud as best it can, covering it with leaves. It even attempts to wash it away with flowing streams, but in the thin line between the leaves and the stream, mud remains in view, slightly obstructed by the morning frost, and it ambushes our eyes as we look upon the water. The water, in an attempt to distract us from the ugly mud it has worked so hard to destroy, puts on a façade of beauty. It borrows the appealing shades of green from the trees and the bright blue from the sky to entrance all who look upon it.

But even as the forest strives to hide the mud, it depends upon it for its power. The trees grow strong and tall because of its nutrients, and the animals burrow into it so it will protect them. The plants and animals take from, but do not give back to, the mud. They take it for granted and continue blooming and burrowing while the mud lies hidden beneath the leaves and water.

As with all things however, the plants and animals do not stay beautiful forever. They die and the forest quickly sweeps them into corners. The trees drop the ugly brown leaves from their branches and the animals are buried beneath them. Nature itself seems to abandon its once beautiful inhabitants, and so they slip into hidden places along with the mud, allying with it and becoming the ugly brown shade that they themselves relied on.

And so it is with all life. The roots of our society lie in the mud of the underappreciated workers. We worship the beautiful actor that reads the lines but do not see the person who wrote them. The painting is hung on our wall, but we do not hang a picture of the artist. The nature of all things is prejudiced and judgmental, but with free will we are given the choice to search for the beauty that nature hides so well.

[Ferris]

I have to disagree slightly on those points.

First off, I work in mud a fair bit and its very interesting to watch, even the smallest speck can look like mountains from the right angle (I dig lots of holes!). Secondly, life does give back to the mud, when it dies it rots, when it deffacates it enirches it. Simple really.

And as to your last paragraph, I know someone who works in the background of her chosen profession and I admire her greatly. She works in theatre, perhaps because I know her I appreciate the things in life that you talk about more?

Nothing better than to think of the hard work she put into my Padded Arming Jacket when its keeping me warm on cold events!

[tarotwolf]

It can be argued that we are a society that puts a huge amount of value in the beautiful. Your piece here goes further to prove that point than you may be aware of. Mud is neither beautiful nor ugly, it simply is mud. Nature is not trying to wash it away any more then it actively tries to sweep its dead under the carpet. That may be a valid interpretation in our beauty driven minds of what is happening but that does not make it fact.

Nature has been involved in the balance of life and death, what we see as beauty and ugly, for eternal life times longer than we have been here and she's pretty darn good at it. I feel that if our collective world society could do half as good a job at embracing the fullness of the cycle of life and death we'd be much better off both physically and spiritually.

I appreciate you sharing your view point. It really gave me an opportunity to explore my own philosophy on the subject.

[Reik Mohican]

Thank you both for your replies. It's nice to hear some other points of view on the subject.

Just to explain where I got this all from-
Our LA teacher took us out to the woods and said we should sit by ourselves and see what we can learn from it. (we were studying Emerson and Thorough). I sat by a creek and noticed that the water did not reflect the mud on its banks but only the sky and the trees. I personified nature in general based on that, I'm sure if I looked harder I could make nature look like less of a jerk.

[evizaer]

Nature is everything that is not man-made. But nature encompasses man. I would say that man is a part of nature. Most people see some strange distinction between the natural and the man-made, and that this distinction somehow makes the man-made less desirable than the natural--This is not necessarily true. We are products of nature--we ARE natural beings. Everything that has arisen from nature is natural, therefore everything is nature. Nature is not an actor, it is everything.

Just a few thoughts. I don't know if they're truly relevant, but you got me thinking.

[Ferris]

It does make sense in that man is nature, but some people will argue that by being man-made it no longer belongs in nature because you wont find it anywhere else other than near man.

Being an Ecologist people often ask me why we bother saving a local species; surely if it cant survive it shouldnt survive? I spend my days re-homing lizards and newts (among others) and at first I couldnt really find an arguement.

But then I thought, no other species expands like we do, so we dont really fit into natures cycle as much as we used to. And of course, I want my grand children to be able to see the things I've seen (and saved) when Im gone.

Just my emo-pennies worth!

[evizaer]

The problem is that we don't have any other intelligent/sentient species of equal ability to compare ourselves with. If we did, we'd be able to see how artificial our actions really are, if they are at all.

[Ferris]

Do Amazonian tribes count as different enough? They were afterall completely out of touch with the rest of humanity on some scales? Or are they inheritantly the same despite the lack of contact with the rest of the human race? (not saying in anyway that they may be percieved as 'not as human'!!)

Just a thought I had when coming home from a Fancy dress party (what ramblins Ive had tonight!)

[evizaer]

I'm simply trying to highlight that the common worldview in industrialized societies is human vs. nature instead of humans in nature. I'd love to hear some thoughts on maintaining a human in nature worldview in an industrial society.

[blaha]

I would love to see what you come up with if you ever visit Arizona. The Huachuca mountains have an ecology you would find interesting.

[Zoidberg]

Now, from the society viewpoint of this, this is very true. Society has created it's own picture of beauty and casts down everything else. But, there is the fact that, without something that didn't look beautiful, there would be no beauty. Everything would be the same.

Now with nature, to nature all things are neither beautiful nor ugly. The mud gives life to so many things. A dead rabbit is eaten by a coyote, which then lives its life until it dies, then its body enriches the soil, which grows grass, which is eaten by a rabbit, and so on. And when that rabbit dies, it grows a tree which feeds a squirrel and houses a bird, which upon their death are sent back into the soil or into the body of another animal. It's the circle of life. Man, i believe, interrupts that circle. A man who kills a deer eats parts of it, and may waste others. When a rabbit is hit by a car, who benefits? The concrete road? The Man who hit it? The rabbit? But, nature will always, and I mean ALWAYS, overpower man. Soon the crow comes and eats the body, who then flies in the woods, only to be eaten and the cycle begins anew. Look at New Orleans. A thriving place of man was practically wiped out by a single bout of nature's wrath. A Natural disaster could happen at any minute, and wipe out millions.

[Iggster]

Seems that there are several contradictory/confusing conclusions one could draw from this.

1. The intro and conclusion talk about humans and our appreciation of beauty in terms of free will and the choice/decision to focus only on the pleasantries. This seems to contrast with the deterministic cycles of nature that you mention in the core of your paper -- leaves falling and covering up dead animals, mud being crucial to flower growth etc... I got the impression that you spoke of nature an as inanimate parallel of the prejudice towards "beauty" and away from "uglyness".

Yet, you seem to personify Nature and speak as if it also "chose" to do those things. I understand this may be splitting hairs, but the two themes of nature being deterministic and inevitably "prejudiced" in terms of aesthetics, and at the same time doing things like choosing clash a bit too strongly here.

2. You point out what seems to be criticism of our focus on the beauty in our art, natural world, at the expense of disregarding the "ugly" nuts-and-bolts of our society like underappreciated workers. I understand what you're saying, but especially with nature doing the same thing, am I to take that we have to "break free" and be "different" in our judgement of good and ugly by virtue of free will? Or is this kind of prejudice justified and in fact Natural since we are, no matter how clever, still a part and extension of the natural world.

Basically, is prejudice towards the shiny beauty and away from our perception of ugly natural? And if so, in what sense is it wrong?

[Reik Mohican]

wow, I hadn't really checked in on this in a while, I'm glad it sparked such a discussion. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.