Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (literature books to read .txt) 📗

about everyone who has helped to elevate society has been inspired by nature. They didn’t go to temples and man-made buildings for it. Environment really does determine consciousness.

But if nature makes original thought, and blesses us, and trees suckle up our negative thoughts, and you receive some sort of wisdom from it all, then maybe that’s why so many people are miserable now? People struggle to realise themselves not just because of constant social media, but because they no longer can go out in nature. If it’s places like this where original thought is created- the wild, natural places free from other people, and if these places are disappearing, where are they going to go for peace and solitude? For their mind to roam in their imagination like Einstein had said? If the best of civilization is created from the ideas these places give us, will society disintegrate when these places decline too much, while man continues to cut them down to turn them into farms and cities? Even with the windfarm next to Cannich, it’s just more and more urbanization. More concrete in the ground, more technology. What is going to happen to us?

There was a lone house about a mile ahead, tucked in from the lochside. I kept going. Your thoughts can be special in a place like this. They can make you original, make you an individual even. But I’m contradicting myself. But can you be individual if there is no natural world?

What are you on about? Nothing. I’m dumb as fuck. I know nothing. But what even is an individual?! Where does your individual identity come from? And if you’re not taking it from nature, and the forest, where does identity come from?

The house was about a half mile away. The red roof sloping down to a huge glassed conservatory that looked out over the water. I thought about it, From culture, I thought, and social groups. All identities come from social groups. That is what we do- judge and categorize, even though Jesus said never judge. What an idealist, utopian dreamer he was! But yes, people make their own and other people’s identities, and then they divide each other into those groups. It’s tribal so maybe it’s always been that way. Like political parties. You’re a conservative, I’m a labour. You have that belief, I have this belief, so I am against you. We can’t meet on common ground. I love my country, and you are from a different

country, so I am against you. And football teams too. Your group vs my group. Nothing will ever come of that. Or will it?

The rain came down harder. I rubbed my face with it, and felt my soaking trousers getting heavier. There were no bushes around the garden, and I could see straight into the house’s green lawn. I pulled my hood up.

Some say only love will save the world, and it’s such a tired, lazy cliché. But that feeling of love is the most powerful thing I have ever felt- here, from these trees, and from those meditations… But..even love is tribal on this earth too! Families give love all the time. A mother’s love for her child. A love for your baby. Is there anything stronger than that? A lot of parents truly want what is best for them, would give up everything for their babies to thrive. But that love is tribal. And restrictive. It is love only for your family, your “group”, and to protect them from the unloving, unlovable, world outside. Remember that family on the train! The dad with his two wee daughters, and him being uncomfortable so that they were comfy. And the man putting his son in warm clothes at that house in Exeter, while I watched from the cycle path. All that love, is only for their own. They keep it locked inside a cave. They contain it instead of spreading it beyond. Maybe that was what Jesus meant by “loving your neighbours and enemies as you do yourself?”

Family love. Love of a football club. A country. A political party. An ideology. A sportsman. A clan. A position. A social group. They are all identities. But identities are created by humans, and humans are prone to human error. We always make mistakes! But if families could take their love and spread it, and countrymen could take their love and spread it, and football supporters, and everyone else too. If they could all take this great, vibrant love they have for their identities and their small social dynamics, and spread it far and wide, this world is saved. If they can love the world as selflessly as they love their own children, then this world is saved!

The stone drive from the house crossed over the road I walked on and continued into the forest on my right. I saw the village ahead and turned back. I had no money on me, and half a bag of rice to feed myself.

But it doesn’t matter, I thought. It’ll work out, or I’ll starve. So what? But what was I thinking? Identities. Yes, and all these identities and divisions are created by opinions.

But…I wondered, all my opinions that I have had throughout my life, could I ever be peaceful with them? When I was judging the hell out of Glasgow, and all those poor bastards, how did I feel? I didn’t feel content, or peaceful. But at times I feel content here... But is it possible to be opinionated, yet also peaceful and content, at the same time? I thought about that for a while. The rain came down sideways, and the wind picked up, making great bulging swells on the loch.

I left the house behind me, observing my boots taking me back home….But anyway, what do you do exactly, when you are content? What would I have done if I had stayed in that wonderful frame of mind