WHY I’M AN (Un)naturalist

I grew up wandering the woods near my house, stuffing critters into old jam jars along with whatever twig I found them on. I caught fireflies, orb weavers, skinks, garter snakes, crawdads, and anything else I could outmaneuver. If I didn’t know the name of an animal, dad pulled the Audubon Society Field Guide off the bookshelf and we looked it up.

During the summer, my family would visit nature parks and I have a vivid memory of walking along a fossilized seabed crammed with trilobites, gastropods, and horned coral. These creatures inhabited shallow oceans when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, and while running my hands over their petrified shells, I fell in love with the universe and all its mind-boggling creations, no matter how strange or tiny. This appreciate for nature’s miracles led me to studying fine art in college, but I had trouble focusing on beauty alone, because that ignored the elephant in the room.

As commerce rapidly replaces biodiversity, it seems obvious to me that we’re squandering an irreplaceable gift. And the resultant anxiety of bearing witnessing to this—as well as my own complicity—is something I grapple with in my art and writing. However, on my most Zen days, I don’t feel that much judgment. Humans are born creators, and I like to make things too. Perhaps the wisest of us will figure out how to live sustainably. And perhaps their descendants will dig up our self-indulgent junk in a million years, puzzling over our rudimentary adaptations to cope with pain and boredom like so many fossilized shells. Let’s hope so, anyway.