Hannah Orloff - American Camino Chapter One Quote Discussion

The average human being will spend most of their lives existing in the world other people have designed for them. Most people will live in a man-made house that is climate controlled, collect food from grocery stores of restaurants, travel distances by man-made transportation, work in man-made buildings or sites, entertain themselves with man-made games or technology, and are buried in man-made structures. We are so disconnected with everything else that exists in the world around us and are shelter by this false sense of structure and isolation from the uncertainty and unpredictability of the natural world. Most people would consider human being separate from nature, because of these false worlds we have crafted around us. It originated as a way to establish comfort and certainty of survival, but has become so complex that it has removed people almost entirely. When finding insects, rodents, or mammals in our buildings, we see them as intruders, but we are meant to share the world with these creatures. That is how I interpret this quote from chapter one of American Camino, where the author references a quote from Evan Eisenberg that states, "made-made landscapes, from the wheat fields and vineyards of ancient Canaan to the strip malls of New Jersey, survive only by the courtesy of the wilderness around them and the wilderness that remains in them." Despite it being a dig at my home state as urbanized (there are plenty of natural spaces left in the state), this quote demonstrates the separation people have with nature. We ultimately forget, because of this separation, that nature is still all around us and we exist because it allows us to. This reminder is starting to return to people as climate change is beginning to affect more populations at a greater rate, from all of the natural disasters that are hitting each area of the globe to the changes in average climates and temperatures. If our species is going to survive on the planet, we have to remind ourselves that we are apart of nature, not in a human bubble, and what we do to nature will come back and affect our lives. Investing in the environment and protecting it will help protect us, rather than trying to move away from it. 

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