Does our daily tasks and experiences affect us to the point where it molds us and changes our feelings and attitudes towards society and ourselves? Who decides if were going to take part and affiliate with our surroundings or technology? Does our parents, friends or family? Both David Orr and Matthew Fox enable us to comprehend these concepts using models for education, work, communities, health, and nature. They both compliment each other in their work because they practice what they preach. Both tie work and study in with spirituality and learning and bonding with nature.
Thich Naht Hanh suggests that we have to create an atmosphere of peace and understanding. We all have to reflect on how our bodies need different things to sustain life. We need more than food and water we also have to have a unity with our bodies and nature; if the mind believes the body shall follow. We cannot ignore the bodys messages, we have to educate ourselves and our children to find equilibrium between our mind, body, and soul, and use it in our daily activities. Orrs and Foxs concepts of biophilia and biophobia are very accurate when describing a lot of the people in society, especially in this time of vast technology.
I think we all get caught up in the use of technology and some people abuse this right, but the one thing most people do including myself is ignore what has been around us since the dawn of time. Most people do not even recognize or make nature apart of their lives. I think we all forgot how beautiful nature is and how cleansing in can be. I would have to say that my immediate environment is both biophobic and biophilia. My world tends to be more biophobic right now because I really have no time to get out and enjoy nature and its wildlife.
I know that I should make time, but I can see how people can get caught up in their own world and never realize what theyre missing. With work, school, and football I cannot really have a good relationship with nature because of my schedule, and it does affect my attitude and health. The reason I know this is because some days I can go out into the environment and connect with other forms of life I am more relaxed and less stressed because I do not have to worry about anything going on in my life at that point in time. I try to go out and use some of the meditation methods and now I think I am hooked.
I find that when I do spend some quality time with nature not only does my attitude change, but also my whole out look on life seems to change, but it doesnt take to long before reality sets in and I am whipped back into the main stream of life. After a hard days work I sometimes head outside and just relax in the woods behind my house in a clearing in the middle of the forest. I like to just sit there and take everything in. I sometimes catch myself talking into the wind and thinking about my life and which direction I want to go. Biophilia urges us to affiliate with all forms of nature and life.
Biophilia develops your sense of being and worth. Biophilia makes you search and find different puzzles to the game of life. Some people look in the wrong places and never get a chance to communicate with nature and see its true beauty. Biophobia is a discomfort with nature and life it urges us to affiliate with technology. I would not say it is a bad thing, but it takes us away of what were suppose to be about. We are forced to choose technology over nature because that is the norm in society. From day one were taught to use simple forms of technology and taught to ignore our urges to learn about the environment.
It takes a special person to see how everything comes together and then in turn uses its methods to teach others. I myself get caught up with the use of a computer. I like using it and its tools because I find them very interesting, but I dont think I could ever have a job where all I do is sit on a computer and write programs and other things like my older brother John. I would have to say that I have the whole spectrum in my family because my sister loves nature and meditation, but my oldest brother surrounds himself with technology and never leaves it.
I think it has him hostage. I try to get him out every once in awhile, but I think he is so caught up in technology with his work that it comforts him to be around it. I believe we should all “keep our appointment with nature. ” Fox and Orr tells us that we distance ourselves from nature and the only time were around it is when were eating it. Everyone deals with Tapophilia even if theyre never in nature because everyone loves a certain place whether it is a place in their home or a hiding spot that had as a kid. I had a special place when I lived in Panama.
There was a group of pine trees with a lot of brush covering them and it all formed a circle so I would go hide inside and I created like a second home in there. It was my own place where I couldnt be distracted by homework or my siblings. I believe along with others that we should start young and teach children the great things that nature has to offer. Everything now is “biologically sealed,” society is shutting us out from the environment and making us live in a synthetic world. Our capacity to relate to nature is being over run by technology soon will seal ourselves out from everything we once loved.
Some things shouldnt be changed and nature is one of them. One way I believe to change the direction of biophobia and make our community more biophilia is that we should create more parks and gardens and educate people on how nature can help us in our every day lives. David Orr and Matthew Fox developed new concepts for education, work, community, and health of the earth. To show us what we can do to if we work together with nature and listen to our bodies. They both have a general direction of work and study and how we can satisfy our inner selves.
What they want to do is help us enable ourselves to create programs and use our work and studies as a building block to create a healthier society. They want us to direct all our energy towards a healthier and more biological community through our work and study. Orr and Fox integrate our inner work with our outer work with our mind, body and spirit. We have to awaken ourselves and become whole. Fox and Orr want to help us create a better society and maybe one-day it can become our vision of a utopian society. Through education both want us to find ourselves from with in and stop separating ourselves from nature.
We have to experience healthy work such as, energy, creativity, space, and time. They show us that we should take care of ourselves and work towards a common goal. “We work to create, and only incidentally do we work to eat. ” We have to change that mindset and help ourselves out and create more areas, which we all can enjoy and try to connect emotionally and spiritually. We have to envision different kinds of activities that satisfy us mentally, physically, and spiritually and then create it so we can service all people.
While meditating I envisioned a football field with my self-hovering over the goal posts. During this I saw myself playing football fully padded and wanted to do the best I could to ensure us a place in the playoffs. I know that I will not become a professional football player, but I still know that I love the game and that I wouldnt mind becoming a coach so that I can help other people enjoy the game as much as I do. I want to give the spectators a distraction from their everyday lives and I want to give them something to look forward to every week.
I know I could make a small step and become a coach, but then I would be leaving my first dream, which is to become a special agent in the FBI. I want to help people that way in a larger area. I think I can help more people that way and make the world somewhat of a better place. This satisfying work does fit into Foxs and Orrs model of work that serves the community. I dont know about it satisfying the earth, but it could project others to do something more worth while with the vision of a better and healthier earth.
Thich Naht Hanh has the same idea as Fox and Orr because he suggests a better way of living and helping others. Thich Naht Hanh wants others to find inner peace and create an atmosphere of respect and self worth. He says in anything we do such as breathing, running, eating, sleeping, we have to stop ignoring the bodies messages. We cannot deny our roles in the universe and in nature. Today our society is always on the go and never has time to sit down let alone listen to there bodies.
Hanh suggests that we take time out even if it is five minutes a day just to relax and use a form of meditation to listen to you and gather ones thoughts. Our every day practices are routines. We get up, eat, go to work, come home, eat, take care of the things we need to get done before the next day, then we go to bed, and it starts all over again; it is a vicious cycle. My reflections of my everyday life follow under the same guidelines. I go to school, then to practice after practice I head to work and after work I go to the gym.
I really do not have any time to do anything else, but I try to go out and visit the great outdoors. I fall under the same routine and like many others I hardly have time to enjoy nature which I think is sad because I love nature. It is really hard to get me angry, but when I am, I stay angry for a long period of time and get really irritated by any little thing. I find now that meditating a few minutes everyday or just walking outside and watching nature I never seem to get angry any more and now rarely do I ever get stressed out and I think nature has something to do with it.
I feel like I belong with nature and I love to embrace it. When I took a stroll around campus reciting Thich Naht Hanhs verses I felt like I had become him for a short period of time. It was almost like I put myself into a trance. I felt that I took everything in that I saw and it seemed like everything just fell into place. I cannot wait to try it again I found it very relaxing even more so than just breathing and clearing my mind. Thich Naht Hanh taught me that I should hold on to the “calm.
Look inward for the answers and enjoy your surroundings and try to help others in their search for peace. His attitude towards life should be duplicated and given to everyone in the world. All three authors have something in common their common goal to strengthen our communities and teach us how to interact with nature and to listen to our bodies. We should all try to help each other out, but the most important is to help you recognize that we all should find inner peace. We need to form a partnership between our inner work and outer work to find a common place with in the universe.