Month: November 2022

Lately my ability to focus started to decline, might it be the past two years of online learning or maybe this ugly weather that makes me sleepy, I don’t know for sure. As a result, in the last Systems Theory class, I could not focus on more than just one topic that we discussed and that was the impact of human race on nature.

When I was little I heard all the time the phrase “” Nature can exist without humans, but humans can not survive without Nature.” that always made sense to me, but the last week made me think that maybe that makes us a parasite actually. In other words, in class, the teacher mentioned the Anthropocene is the era in which humans impacted irreversibly the earth, and adding to this the video that made a comparison between the number of people that can exist and keep on living by having a lifestyle as people in a country in Africa (I don’t recall the name) or people in North America made me realize that human race can be problematic. The bottom line is if we do not care about the life that’s given to us and the need of spending and waste everything surrounding us with the stupid reason of so-called happiness or how other people might say ”YOLO” would lead to the destruction of both us and nature.

But are we a parasite or worse than that? One might argue that people are doing things for nature, all the ONGs and volunteering for nature, planting trees, gathering the trash, cleaning the waters, and so on. I’ll say that is true, I’ve been involved in some actions like that back home but I also know that under the reason of ”helping nature” we don’t see that we are actually fixing what we created, for example, I was planting trees in this spring to repopulate a forest that was cut by other people for different reasons. So these ONGs are actually doing what we all should, bringing back what we wasted, cleaning after ourselves, and being decent because after all the indifference that some may claim is ”cool” might be our downfall.

I am not trying to be dramatic here but we should know that we are pretty much responsible for what is happening around us, even if we don’t admit it. As my teacher in my home university said in the first lecture of my first year ”We should know that we as individuals first and then as a group, we are fully responsible for our lives, for doing or not something to make things better and keep in mind that you can always do more. You will be responsible for how the world will look in the future as much as I am responsible for how the world is today and in the same way that your parents and everyone else are responsible for it”(B. A.).

I’ll end this comment by saying that I consider we as humans are a parasite to nature because we desperately need it to survive, but we can and I think that we should change the relationship between us and nature from parasite-host to cohabitation and also start identifying and connecting with nature which in my opinion brings us closer to happiness than any other form of consumerism ever will. Next time when you’re sad go climb a hill or go on a hike, breathe in the fresh air and just enjoy being alive please, just let yourself be one with nature.

Is life a system? Does the coexistence between people work as a system or as a collection? Is there a necessity for a purpose?

Life is a system without a doubt in my opinion. let’s have a look at the definitions, shall we?

A system – „a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a complex whole.`”

A collection – „an accumulation of objects gathered for study, comparison, or exhibition or as a hobby”

A purpose – „the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists”

Now let’s mix them up a bit and make some sense out of them. A system consists of things that are connected and not just because they have similarities (criteria for collection) but also because there is a purpose that any and every part of the system has and the elements can not function the same without one another. So, for example if you take out or add a piece from a collection nothing significant actually happens. Trying the same thing with a system can actually change it fundamentally. As for that I am going to come back once again to the video presenting how wolves change rivers as an example of why life on earth works as a system. If by adding wolves to an ecosystem even the course of the rivers can change, we should keep in mind that people are also interconnected and by adding or removing a person the humanity can change fundamentally.

Considering what I just said maybe I’ll add a piece of advice and say that kindness is also a process in the system of life and because we are an important part of life itself, contributing with positive actions we have the power of influencing people to do the same, starting with us. Be kind first to yourself, you count as a main part of this puzzle!

Everybody knows those little silly quotes that go like “home is not a place, but a person” or “home is not a place but a heart” and considering the last few days I think that is it mostly about relationships. We might love a place, the place where we spent most of our lives in or the place that offered somehow the opportunity to change, grow or see ourselves the way we actually are but let’s not miss an aspect! Yes, we should be at peace with ourselves and comfortable to be with ourselves but can a place feel like home if we don’t consider having the loved ones close enough? I think that as humans we can adapt to almost any place in this world, maybe not really like it, but we can adapt and get used to it, find favorite places and hobbies but without either connecting with the people of that place and making it feel like home or having the loved ones close enough to be able to see them at any time given removing this way the homesickness that can’t really go with the place you can call home.