Train Musings Part I: On Nature

[just to update on the previous post...I emailed a few folks and we're trying to do something/anything...so I'll let you all (all the 3 avid readers of this blog =P) know what's going down]

But on a different note...

Today I arrived back in Berkeley after a much needed week in San Diego.

From point A to point B. I wonder why it feels like such an adventure to ride the Amtrak from San Diego to Berkeley. With planes you fly hundreds of miles from place to place within hours. A distance of 500 miles is reduced to an hour and a half plane ride. All you see are clouds (if you're lucky enough to get a window seat). But the train ride was different. I looked out from the train window to the landscape passing by and I remembered the phrase "so beautiful it hurts". Seeing the shore where waves and land meet, dotted with colorful beach houses, and flowing waves made me remember how beautiful California is. And how beautiful nature is. Sometimes I tend to forget because I'm so immersed in technology, in machinery, in human manufactured products (objectification). I forget how beautiful nature is. Even those beach houses couldn't overwhelm nature's beauty. As if nature were somehow letting the people share in the wonder as guests- not conquerors of nature.

And it reminded me that this "taken- for-granted" aspect of humanity (at least some sects of it) contribute to so many misunderstandings in the world. Humans create borders. Create spaces for people to be in and for others to be out. We create monstrous large structures of steel and glass so to better "let nature in" to these buildings. Which is ironic to say the least. That first people destroy nature and then find ways of "fixing" it.

The scene reminded me of a lot of things that have been marinating in my mind. Global warming. Neglect for other cultures. I remember watching a CNN special on global warming and how certain islands in the Pacific (like some of the Cook Islands or something) are steadily becoming swallowed by the ocean because water levels are rising (due to the melting of glaciers). I am so dismayed/depressed that people who have built their livelihood and their home on that island must face the eventuality of leaving because they are being literally forced out of their home. Who gets blamed for this? Greedy consumers of ozone depleting products? The people who use fossil fuels as energy sources? Overpopulation? No one and everyone it seems.

Yes. I could get caught up in the "environmental" movement and perhaps my words now are echoing those sentiments. From what I have seen, the problem with most environmentalists (and I suppose you could include vegetarians) is that they tend to believe that the "race problem" is over and we need to move on to the environmental problem. Which I do not believe. I believe both are problems, but not necessarily unrelated. I do think that humans, by creating borders and these systems of wealth and poverty, may have somehow gone against nature. But then I suppose you could argue that "surivival of the fittest" can apply to humanity's actions (social darwinism) and so there must be the haves and have nots in order for society to function.

What was my point? I think that its difficult to choose. That there shouldn't be all these borders (geographic, categorization wise, "ists"/"isms", etc). Nature is something to be valued and taken care of. Human beings may have the ability to destroy nature, but they are also a part of the environment I am talking about. Simplistically, I think everything is related somehow and maybe if we start valuing each other and our environment- we might accomplish something. But that is very simplistic indeed. And idealistic too.