How do you view your environment?

Magnolia on Cowslip Hill

I’ve just started reading ‘Vital Signs: Psychological Responses to Ecological Crisis’. The 2nd chapter, by Susan Bodnar, considers the relationship between humans and their environment, using interviews with people in New York City. Bodnar says ‘Their narratives demonstrate how the same consumerist processes that are causing careless damage to the earth’s ecosystems have also become a part of their personalities.’ She identifies three types of relationship:

1. ‘The earth as scenery’ – these individuals have all the main technology goods, and the natural environment seems to be mainly a backdrop.

2. ‘The earth is my symbol’ – these individuals see meaning in the earth and talk about environmental issues but without it really impacting on their choices as consumers. They enjoy and value being in nature but see themselves as separate from it.

3. ‘The earth is part of me’ – these individuals see the self as including nature, and use technology less.

 

This is a simplified summary of a study based in psychoanalysis. I can think of people around me who fit each type. I think I was in a type 3 relationship in younger childhood, when I lived on the Solway Estuary. Moving into a city and a suburb, being suddenly at a big school where I knew no one, I’m pretty certain I moved back into type 1. I don’t think I really came back to type 3 until my injury forced me to slow down, though I have always tended to be someone who has resisted buying the latest technology or appliance but sometimes fell sway to the lure of perfection.

 

Another statement I find thought-provoking is “Perhaps the tenor of psychological work may shift away from creating the ideal of the bigger, better, healthier me and toward teaching people how to live within the limits and boundaries of their landscapes and how to make use of rather than being used by their technologies.’ This struck me because I’ve been reflecting on how a lot of my work-orientated activity at the moment involves being on the computer. I’m not sure why. I’ve been thinking, what would I be doing if I didn’t have a computer. My relationships and communications are mainly mediated via email and online networks. I create documents on here. I seek out information and entertainment online. And then I look out the patio doors, or at Bobby, and think: this doesn’t feel real. Being at the computer doesn’t feel real. I’m still mulling this over and I know in the next few weeks I’ll be out meeting people face-to-face more and running workshops, so that may bring some balance. And there’s books to read. Somehow books feel more real. That’s why I’ve resisted the e-reader.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh, in ‘The Miracle of Mindfulness’ says,

 

“Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”