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| A curlew probes the Wells mud in search of something tasty |
Like peasant children,
we passed our days and nights in the fields and the woods, looked after horses,
stripped the bark off the trees, fished, and so on.... And, you know, whoever
has once in his life caught perch or has seen the migrating of the thrushes in
autumn, watched how they float in flocks over the village on bright, cool days,
he will never be a real townsman, and will have a yearning for freedom to the
day of his death.
Anton Chekhov – Gooseberries (1898)
While on holiday in Norfolk we took the opportunity
for a spot of bird watching. We are definitely not bird-watchers in anything resembling a knowledgeable sense but these days it is something we enjoy. However –
There is a however. A faint shadow lurks in a corner of my mind as
I sit there in the hide contentedly gazing through my binoculars while
listening to the conversation of other bird watchers. I listen to what they say in case a
little of their expertise permeates in my direction. It’s a pleasant way to pass an hour or so but that shadow doesn’t go away, so what is it?
It is something to do with the way we isolate ourselves from the natural world even when taking an interest in it, even when sitting in a cold hide surrounded by marsh peering through binoculars. Somehow modern interest in the natural world as endlessly presented by the BBC misses the point. Of course it would miss the point because it’s the BBC but to acknowledge that isn’t the point either. However assiduously pursued, an interest in the natural world is not a particularly deep involvement. It can’t be – we have isolated ourselves too well.
It is something to do with the way we isolate ourselves from the natural world even when taking an interest in it, even when sitting in a cold hide surrounded by marsh peering through binoculars. Somehow modern interest in the natural world as endlessly presented by the BBC misses the point. Of course it would miss the point because it’s the BBC but to acknowledge that isn’t the point either. However assiduously pursued, an interest in the natural world is not a particularly deep involvement. It can’t be – we have isolated ourselves too well.
As Chekhov wrote, the natural world induces a yearning for
freedoms we cannot possibly attain in the modern world. If ever we did it
would not be the modern world. We can’t live as the birds live – we just can’t.
We can’t even want to live as the birds live because we’d hate life away from
our comforts, our health, our multifarious protections, our cup of coffee afterwards. And a cake.
Modern life is vastly better than having to stick your beak
in the mud all day, but there is a price. Fortunately we are so far removed
from the natural world that we don’t often see the price. But sometimes, in the
peripheral vision of life, sometimes we catch the shadow of what cannot be.
2 comments:
Good post. I think our attitudes towards the natural world are ambivalent. Most of the time it terrifies us, because the natural world is our bodies and the fragile chains of circumstance which support our bodies and keep them alive and not hurting. Most of our human evolution has been driven by the desire to be less like those poor bloody animals who sink back into the mud and are gone. Occasionally, our human culture starts to yearn for some of those aspects we have left behind. Rousseau's "noble savage" was one such movement, and naturism and possibly even sport are other examples. The best that most people in our society can manage today is probably some vague sentiments about "ecology" and listening to Attenborough do the voice-over to some nice dolphins playing.
Sam - thanks and yes, our attitudes towards the natural world are ambivalent. It's surprising how few people venture into it. Lots of people in the valley but hardly any up in the hills - that's virtually universal.
As well as those vague sentiments about "ecology" there is a significant interest in the archaeology of the iron and bronze ages which I'm sure we tend to see as populated by "noble savages".
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