Nancy Swick

RE 250

Worldview

3/17/15

To live with the natural world instead of on top of it.

My view of the world is constantly evolving as I gain more insight and

wisdom with each daily experience. I am someone with a writers mind;

always seeking or stumbling upon a conclusion. Any of the conclusions I find

may become a grand thesis, or merely a supporting point that contributes to

the whole. In A Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell draws a

connection between a heros developmental journey in an epic, such as

Frodos in Lord of the Rings, and the human journey from birth to death. This

theory is a process that develops and builds upon itself. Just like life, all

stories include ups and downs, guardians and guides, overcoming problems,

and braving to grand conclusions. The entire story normally is a process of

finding the grand conclusion, whether it is a marriage, saving humanity, or

merely learning the power and value of ones own being. The Heros Journey

was introduced to me during my senior year of high school and since then, I

have found it applicable to my life as a whole, and even in short term

journeys I go on such as college, a summer job in Nevada, or even a day hike

in solitude. This process is how I organize my worldview, and my worldview is

seasonally changing; influenced largely by classes I am enrolled in, places I

am living, strangers I make acquaintance with, and many unpredicted

variables.

Since I started college, I began to gain wisdom very quickly. Within my

first semester, I drew parallels from content in my classes; between

theoretical physics, philosophy, antiquity influence on western society, and

human geography. After my finals were all set and done, I walked away from

the semester with a new view on scientific and personal philosophy. Over the

years, since humans began to develop societies and think critically, people

became scientists. Basic fields of science developed, such as astronomy, and

are being built upon every year. We are constantly realizing we were wrong

about something that we shaped out societal worldview on. It is within this

impossibility of concrete conclusions that I form my worldview, something

that is able to change and be discarded by others for the sake of

improvement and truth.

Today, as I sit here and write this, I believe my worldview to have a

solid foundation. I am aware that I am merely one human. Vaguer than this, I

am merely a speck of the universe inhabiting human form for a brief time.

My insignificance is the source for my gratitude and awe of the forces of

nature. With this greatness in mind, I draw conclusions on wrong and right,

healthy and unhealthy, negative and positive. Nature is a reward based

system. We are rewarded with life, vibrancy, happiness, vitality. We poison

nature, nature poisons us back; take the Love Canal for example. We

manufacture and prescribe pills to regulate chemicals in our brains to make

us happier. These chemicals have side effects. We take more chemicals for

the side effects. Perhaps there are ways to level out these chemicals without

introducing foreign elements. I am not a scientist, but as an observer, I

believe the foundation of humanity should be nature rather than progress. I

would love to be convinced otherwise.

Recently, I have been increasingly effected by the assigned readings in

my sustainability class. One in particular, Rachel Carsons Silent Spring,

inspired me to better understand humans place amongst nature. Her words

confidently moved people from seeing their lives as something separate from

the earth, just as Descartes and many other philosophers preached. Until

reading this, I had been cautious regarding just how I advertise nature to

others. After seeing the perspective Carson uses to draw people to see the

world for how beautiful it is, I am more inclined to successfully recruit

advocates for nature.

Ever since I first became consciously aware of the environment outside

myself I have been passionate about protecting it. My generation was one of

the last to have a strong influence of nature on their adolescent views of the

world. It is crucial for a child to discover themselves in the wilderness before

they discover their role in the western world. My deep passion and draw to

wilderness is what shaped my role in the western world. I do not want to

keep them separate. I hope that my current view of the world will, in time,

grow closer to that which I envision of the future. To stand at the edge of the

sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist
moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have

swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of

years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to

have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be

(Carson, Silent Spring).