Heavy Thoughts and Headaches

I am generally an optimistic person when it comes to issues of the environment; it is not often that I have an experience that makes me lose faith in the world. I had just such an experience today.

In my Nature and Culture class this afternoon we watched the film Manufactured Landscapes. This film chronicles an artist's journey (I never caught his name) as he travels the Far East in search of sites where the effects of the man-made world are most apparent. The places he goes to and the images he captures simply boggle the mind. The viewer is presented with the sight of a seemingly endless factory, with row-upon-row of Chinese workers each doing their part in the assembly of irons for clothing. The operation is indescribably massive--one must see the minutes-long panarama of the factory to get a sense of its enormity. Compounding the overwhelming image of the factory is the highly regimented army of workers, who line up in neat lines between shifts to discuss how they could have better assembled their components of the iron. Other scenes depict welders assembling ships in China, or dissassembling old oil tankers in Bangladesh.

I was shocked by the youth of most of these workers. The factory workers all look like high school or college kids--young adults who should be studying in preparation for a brighter future than factory work.

The film then took us to China's Three Gorges Dam, showing Chinese citizens tearing down their own cities which just happen to be in the floodzone to make way for the large boats that soon will be floating. How one could tear down one's very home to make way for a man-made flood I will never understand.

I've been spending much of the last few days stressing about my future. What classes should I register for next quarter? What will I do this summer? What do I want to major in? What career am I aiming towards? Ultimately, I've been trying to determine what I want to do with my life. I certainly hope I won't spend it assembling parts for electronic appliances.

Will all these thoughts flowing. So I did what I always do when I feel overwhelmed--I sought out nature. I need to get out sometimes on my own, to find a little place I can appreciate and attempt to connect with.

So I went on a walk near the Arboretum. What I found was an assortment of small gardens and humble pathways. I visited the community gardens of the Solano Aparment complex as the sun and sky were particularly beautiful. I visited the Native California Plants section of the Arboretum and found a Point Sal purple sage plant, a dwarf Coyote bush, and an oak tree. It's nice to be around such leafy reminders of home. I then visited the Environmental Horticulture complex, where I discovered their gardens and within them an orange tree, from which I picked myself an orange. I settled down on a bench and read Into the Wild while enjoying my orange. After neglecting my outdoor needs for a while it was nice to connect with what is important to me. I just wish I had a mountain to climb!

I plan to spend more time studying outdoors and in the Arboretum, or in other leafy parts of campus. I really can make the outdoors my place of learning. I plan also to just relax, and realize that I have many years to figure out what I want to study and what I want to be. There really is no rush, and there's much to enjoy along the way.