Stolen Memories

Hello again! I hope everyone has had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I just spent mine in New York with my grandparents, where we watched James Bond movies, had a huge Thanksgiving dinner, and got to see La Cage Aux Folles performed live on Broadway. Naturally, I also went birdwatching. Two things I was very lucky to see were a Fork-Tailed Flycatcher (a crazy looking thing that somehow wandered in from South America) and a Little Gull (another rarity that I've only seen once before).

Minus the birds, pumpkin pie, and crazy New York people, I also spent a good chunk of time reading Reading Lolita in Tehran for English class. Although the book so far is a great read, one passage in particular stood out as blog material. Here, Azar Nafisi describes how the loss of basic freedoms in her country has affected each generation of people:

"My generation complained of a loss, the void in our lives that was created when our past was stolen from us...Yet we had a past to compare with the present; we had memories and images of what had been taken away. But my [students]...had no past. Their memory was of a half-articulated desire, something they never had." (76)

Now you may ask, "what does this have to do with nature and the environment?". The answer is written in the creed of each and every environmental organization. Why conserve the environment? Why save the whales, the trees, or the pandas? It's always about future generations. We want our children and great grandchildren to witness the planet's natural heritage, just as we want them to witness freedom. And when there are no more whales, trees, or pandas remaining, what are our children left with? An empty void- just like what Nafisi describes.

After learning about some majestic bygone creatures like the elephant bird, Tasmanian Tiger, Great Auk, wooly mammoth, and Dodo, I think we all feel a degree of loss and hopelessness. Like Teddy Roosevelt once said: "When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished."

When you think back to what the world was like before it became despoiled by mankind, it's almost unfathomable. Less than two centuries ago- in the very region I now live in- bison swarmed across in enormous herds, and passenger pigeons literally blackened the skies. Yes- literally. According to historical accounts, a SINGLE flock of passenger pigeons could be 300 miles long, a mile wide, and take SIX DAYS to migrate overhead. A friend of mine- who happens to be writing a book on passenger pigeons- told me how the birds would strip trees of their branches just by landing in them and the beating of their wings would create downdrafts as they took off.

Even after witnessing extraordinary numbers of birds, I cannot imagine anything like this. Passenger pigeons were slaughtered by the thousands and eventually hunted to extinction. The last bird died in 1914, and like Nafisi's students, we have no tangible memories left of them- only stories from a distant past.

Admiration vs. Knowledge (and a book by Gary Larson)

Today, after two classes on the same subject (Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible), I decided I would catch up on some reading in the school library. No sooner had I settled in than I noticed an interesting looking book on a shelf. A short, paperback book with a cartoonified worm on the front. Now I'll admit I am one to be easily distracted, but this was an illustrated story by one of my favorite cartoonists, Gary Larson. Gary Larson, if you don't know him, has created countless cartoons- often nature-themed- for his hilarious series known as The Far Side.

This short, clever tale, titled "There's a Hair in my Dirt!", is centered on a family of earthworms at a dinner table. It begins when a a young worm (the son) finds a hair in his food. He becomes upset and disheartened with life, so father worm decides to cheer him up with a story.

The story --which is fraught with Larson's unique sense of humor-- involves a beautiful maiden as she walks through a forest. On each page, she observes some aspect of nature, and unknowingly remarks on how wonderful it is. She sees birds singing and thinks they are happily greeting the day, when in reality, they are shouting pick-up lines and obscenities. She also sees dragonflies and believes them to be "dancing" when they are actually hunting down and dismembering airborne insects. At one point, she observes a snake about to consume a mouse, beats it to death, and saves the mouse- which ironically kills her by transmitting a deadly disease.

In any case, this story challenges many human misconceptions about nature. These include the notion that predators are "evil", birds sing when they're happy, and that nature exists for the sole purpose of looking pretty. What I find particularly impressive about this tale is that it provides ecological facts while maintaining enough humor to captivate anyone.

What I also find particularly funny is how humans are portrayed through this foolish, presuming maiden. Indeed, her example shows that just about anyone can appreciate nature- and while this is generally a good thing, it also shows how blind we can be. Indeed, some people are all too willing to jump to conclusions. This type of ignorance not only blinds us, but also poses danger to other species. In certain western states, for example, wolves are still associated with a negative image and KILLED because people are unable to see their role in the ecosystem. They'll say wolves destroy livestock and go apeshit about eradicating them- even though this has been shown to have negative consequences. In the northern Chicago suburbs where I live, wolves have been exterminated, and the result is an explosion in deer, overgrazing due to deer, and an endless profusion of deer-related diseases.

This theme of knowledge vs ignorance applies not only to nature, but to the rest of the world as well. Like Reverend Nathaniel from the Poisonwood Bible, the woman in the story is good-intentioned, but ignorant and incapable of grasping knowledge, so she ends up causing more harm than good to the world around her (killing a beneficial predator- the snake).

On a more personal level, you can only get you so far by admiring nature's beauty. To truly appreciate the natural world, one must be willing learn about it and make sense of it. Only then can we make sense of the universe and see ourselves in the bigger picture.