ECOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
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appreciation. Moving beyond romantic understandings of 'nature’ cast within
the idioms of the rural and the wild, we may include the cityscape as an
expression of natural evolution as well. Although- the city has been reduced to
a dense population clustered around centers of industrial capitalism, even
within these centers, there exists the sensual yearning for clean tree-lined
streets, city parks, open-air cafes, community gardens, and farmers’ markets. By
expanding our notions of ‘nature’ to include cities, we include the urban within
discussions of quality of everyday life, appreciating the places where much of
the world’s population lives, struggles, and despite it all, often thnves.
In turn, an associative desire for nature incorporates this sensual
appreciation for natural processes, transforming it to a sense of association with
the natural world around us.
An associative desire for nature, often referred to as feeling ‘at one with
nature’, represents our joy in empathizing with other species, identifying with
the larger process of natural evolution that binds each of us to every organism
on the planet.
Yet, again, in contrast to a romantic associative desire for
nature, a social-associative desire extends this empathy to the rest of humanity,
wanting not to transcend our humanity to love a ‘pure nature’, but to join with
the rest of humanity to create a world that is ecologically whole. Feeling at one
with nature means feeling solidarity with communities who have emerged
from and dwell within the places that we love; it means becoming allies in the
twin struggles for social and ecological justice.
A differentiative desire for nature means that while feeling at one with
nature, we understand this oneness to represent a unity in diversity. It means
that we can hold the sense of being both similar to, and distinct from, other
species. "While retaining (he sensual and associative desire to be part of the
natural world, we can complement this yearning with the striving to
understand that which makes humanity evolutionarily distinct. Thus, while
standing on top of a building or mountain peak, we can include ourselves
within the picture. "We can understand that we are both similar to and different
from the other organisms that slither, crawl, and fly through the sensual field.
We express our creative differentiative desire for nature when we draw
meaning from our relationship to the natural world. Creative differentiative
desire for nature entails the desire to highlight the poignancy of particular
moments of natural evolution by representing the earth’s beauty through such
mediums as philosophy, poetry, song, dance, or painting. As this desire is
highly culturally mediated, its expression reflects the values and practices of
particular peoples. For some cultures, it entails differentiating natural processes
through a fluency in such scientific practices as biology, physics, or ecology;
for others, it entails the creation of practices of herbal medicine.