Chatter Post response
May. 31st, 2013 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serina_dsQuestion from this post: http://brigits-flame.livejournal.com/853878.html
"If you could be an eyewitness to a weather phenomenon (e.g. an earthquake, a hurricane/typhoon, a tornado, a tsunami, etc.), what would you want see up close or experience if you could be guaranteed safety? Why? Even if you couldn't be guaranteed safety?"
I love the thought of being in the midst of a beautiful, destructive, indifferent, chaotic hurricane. Can you imagine standing in the middle of the eye of the storm, in an area of eerie stillness, whilst only a few dozen miles away, the full power of nature rips and hurls and crushes everything in its path? Walking through the edge of the storm, strolling in ever-tightening spirals through that barrier between the destruction and full fury of the hurricane, and the centre? Feeling the winds rip at your clothes and hair and flesh? The thought sends shivers down my skin, and I can feel the increasing thud of my heartbeat ripple through my limbs.
Don't get me wrong, I feel great sadness when I see what destruction a hurricane has wrought on homes and communities that people lived in, cared about. The places that were the physical representation of so many (hopefully) good memories, shattered in the dust and debris. For those people who are hurt, I feel even more pain, and they have all my good wishes for their recovery. For those, saddest of all, who lose a loved one to the power of nature, my heart breaks for your sorrow. Nature is an indifferent force, and cares nothing for the pains we feel.
But then, we as a race also inflict so many hurts and injuries on our ecosystems, so it's not like we're blameless innocent victims. At least nature doesn't do it with intention and conscious knowledge. And the effects of our encroachments on the natural world are also felt by other species - more so than ourselves, in many cases.
But for all that, I still feel hope and joy and optimism when I think of our future. Maybe we will learn to live in sympathy with our surroundings. I wonder what that world would look like?
"If you could be an eyewitness to a weather phenomenon (e.g. an earthquake, a hurricane/typhoon, a tornado, a tsunami, etc.), what would you want see up close or experience if you could be guaranteed safety? Why? Even if you couldn't be guaranteed safety?"
I love the thought of being in the midst of a beautiful, destructive, indifferent, chaotic hurricane. Can you imagine standing in the middle of the eye of the storm, in an area of eerie stillness, whilst only a few dozen miles away, the full power of nature rips and hurls and crushes everything in its path? Walking through the edge of the storm, strolling in ever-tightening spirals through that barrier between the destruction and full fury of the hurricane, and the centre? Feeling the winds rip at your clothes and hair and flesh? The thought sends shivers down my skin, and I can feel the increasing thud of my heartbeat ripple through my limbs.
Don't get me wrong, I feel great sadness when I see what destruction a hurricane has wrought on homes and communities that people lived in, cared about. The places that were the physical representation of so many (hopefully) good memories, shattered in the dust and debris. For those people who are hurt, I feel even more pain, and they have all my good wishes for their recovery. For those, saddest of all, who lose a loved one to the power of nature, my heart breaks for your sorrow. Nature is an indifferent force, and cares nothing for the pains we feel.
But then, we as a race also inflict so many hurts and injuries on our ecosystems, so it's not like we're blameless innocent victims. At least nature doesn't do it with intention and conscious knowledge. And the effects of our encroachments on the natural world are also felt by other species - more so than ourselves, in many cases.
But for all that, I still feel hope and joy and optimism when I think of our future. Maybe we will learn to live in sympathy with our surroundings. I wonder what that world would look like?
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-31 02:49 pm (UTC)Ooh, that's an awesome description. I didn't much, but now I do, a little bit.
I mostly like English weather which is safe and predictable. Violent weather seems so profligate, it's the sort of thing I might work my way up to finding interesting, rather than just untidy and annoying, one day. Although thinking about it, I am very impressed that some phenomena are possible; seeing a whirlwind, or tsunami, or volcano somewhere uninhabited would be really impressive in a "wow, nature can really do that" way.