After reading the Rachel Carson excerpt “The Marginal World”
and Thoreau’s “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, I found myself considering
my own reality and what I might be missing. Carson approaches the theme of
reality in a few ways. She presents difficult concepts like “awareness of the
past and of the continuing flow of time” by framing it with a metaphor of a
shoreline. All is washed away. What may leave an impact, like a bird’s tracks
in the sand, will always be washed away by the water. I may leave an impact on
my family, friends, and community, but time will wash away my name and everything
I lived for while here on earth. How do we make a life knowing that our
existence is insignificant? Thoreau would answer that we must live deliberately
– like nature – settle ourselves, work, and dig through the mess of opinions,
prejudice, and delusions to uncover our rock bottom, reality.
It seems that the natural world already understands the “cosmic
realities of their world” while we live in a delusion. I was already questioning
the purpose of my pace of life, especially life of a university student, when
I read this Thoreau quote, “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?”
As a student, it’s easy to answer that we live quickly because everyone around
us is pushing us to be better and do more; we feel a need to be in constant competition
with those around us. Our future now seems hinged on our ability to perform and
get a good job and not on our ability to enjoy life and understand the greater
truths of humanity.
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