In Water and Fluid, by Campbell, I thought the overlying theme was that was is literally and figuratively everywhere. It not only surrounds our physical environments but also makes up around half of the physical human body. It does not just drive our everyday lives in a mundane way- but it’s powerful and profound, and many people go through their daily routines without realizing this. Water has always held important significance throughout history, rather it be religious or physical, it has always been there. Specifically, the water cycle is mainly overlooked. We learn about it when we’re young, but we never truly marvel at it when we’re older. I thought I was a pretty astute observer of nature and the environment, but I understand I miss a few key elements. Something that stuck with me from this reading was from the philosopher Heraclitus, when talking about rivers he states that, “we never step in the same river twice: both we and water will be different with each passing moment,” and this was very profound to me. I have always considered water to be the most important source of life, but it had not occurred to me that though I can do the same hike and visit the same places, it will never be the same as it was last time. We often forget that the human body is ever-changing, but so is the natural body that shapes us.
“Bodily Natures” was significantly harder to decipher. Stacy Alaimo writes very philosophically and almost though it was published in 2010. I felt like I had transcended back to reading environmental philosophers of an earlier time. The piece itself was very hard to read and very dense. I had to reread it multiple times to get somewhat of a grasp on her message. I concluded that Alaimo was trying to solidify the connection between humans and the environment. Humans oftentimes try to separate themselves from nature and this is a natural thing because we are natural beings. The environment and nature surround us at every instance of life, and we can physically see this, but we forget how natural our bodies are as well. People try to escape this connection and many are successful at disconnecting from the natural world to pursue a life in the material world.
Usually going on the EWEB website infuriates me because even though I split a home and it’s costs with four other people, our EWEB bill is always outrageous. It is nice to look through and see that they are making the efforts to keep everyone informed of the plans they have. I had no idea that EWEB served all of Eugene, roughly 200,000 people with water from the McKenzie River. Knowing that they have a plan in case they do not have enough water to serve the Eugene population is reassuring.
Maria Kaika presents a new type of outlook on how urbanization has transformed nature. Most of urban planning has been done with nature in mind, mainly because people do not want to feel entirely disconnected from the natural world. City planners must take this into consideration when constructing plans, and it presents a sort of juxtaposition of the good and bad nature with the city. Nature in the cities was once beautiful, but in the beginning of these plans, the green spaces quickly turned into places of crime and homelessness. The aesthetic of a city was ruined by the thing that was there to make it beautiful. Kaika then goes on to talk about how to city is a transformation of the human and natural investment, but this, like many things that humans invest in, becomes clouded with the overproduction. All things must be produced and go through some sort of human altercation before they are let out into the world. The untouched natural phenomena excluded, but the goods and commodities we rely on are in some way manufactured. This manufacturing and changing done by humans creates the desire for more and more and the quality diminishes.
I especially enjoyed reading this piece, and found it much more durable than the previous ones. Understanding the connection between the natural and artificial environment is a topic I had to write about in another class, and though I did the assignment before reading these chapters, it clarified the juxtaposition of the natural and city environment.
Some questions I thought about:
- What can be done to stray our normal societal ideas about how the city and the natural environment can both exist simultaneously at the same location? Can anything be done? Or are there locations that exist that are like this?
- Why do humans naturally try to stray from nature, and what makes us feel the disconnect?
- How is it that humans (or maybe just myself) feels as though they must remove themselves entirely from an artificial environment to relate to nature?
