{"id":26,"date":"2015-03-01T20:08:18","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T00:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/?p=26"},"modified":"2015-03-01T20:08:18","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T00:08:18","slug":"naming-the-inherent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/?p=26","title":{"rendered":"Naming the inherent"},"content":{"rendered":"

The difference I see between an ecological view of the world and simply a view of the world <\/em>is the awareness that any understanding of this life is <\/em>ecological. Humans, after all, possess the innate capability to integrate knowledge, to correlate experience with norm and fact, to\u2014through connection with others\u2014understand that even the \u201cotherness\u201d of the world possesses a lens to look back with questioning eyes at what we deem familiar. It is the harnessing of this awareness, and the insistent use of its vocabulary, that constitutes an ecological view.<\/p>\n

An ecological view of the world teaches us that flossing is good for your heart and that wildfire (even accepting human connotation of a decidedly neutral natural phenomenon) isn\u2019t always \u201cbad.\u201d It insists in the understanding of racism as a socio-politically motivated system of oppression, and it reminds us that the traffic pattern downtown will alter the forms of movement around it. To think ecologically, in short, is to make connection\u2014though not always and not limited <\/em>to connection made linearly. Ecology as a mentality encompasses patterns made in straight, correlation or causation lines<\/em>, but also incorporates circles, zigzags, backtracking, and dotted what-if\u2019s. Ecology is a web and its practice as a way of knowing is the exploration and utilization of its intricacies.<\/p>\n

In thinking about the complexity of ecology, I see a possible challenge emerging from the reality that we cannot know everything, nor can we predict exactly where our actions in this web of the world will take us, and<\/em> our climate. How, then, to create positive change and minimize risk of accidental misunderstandings of the systems around us and their survival? An ecological view, of course\u2014but taken with the understanding that there is no one status quo to preserve or <\/em>understand. There are many\u2014infinite. We live in a world of constant motion, and an ecological view of it must also accept (though not be defeated by) the fact that the unknown will always exist in one form or another. Ecology, in the face of invisible fact, simply seeks to understand what is <\/em>seen through as many lenses as possible.<\/p>\n

For, in ecological thought, the unknown should not be reason for paralysis\u2014what good is that. Better, I think, to incorporate with an aspiring ecological view a desire to do good work, and the motivation to make it stick. In humanity I see too much\u2014to much beauty, too much struggle, too much double entendre, too much love and too much art\u2014to believe any one of us is singular in our understanding of the world, or at least in our potential understanding of the world. Thus, none of us possess a <\/em>view\u2014we live in the many <\/em>interpretations and understandings of the world around us, and again, the only divide between that an ecological perspective is the awareness that such complexity exists and should be embraced.<\/p>\n

An ecological perspective dives in to the messiness that is life. It instructs us, instead of calling for the cleanup of the absolute chaos that comes with the process and attempted understanding of existence, to lean in to an awareness of <\/em>one\u2019s view, to engage in mindfulness that this view is both multifold and incomplete, but capable of greatness nonetheless.\u00a0 — Rebecca Potter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The difference I see between an ecological view of the world and simply a view of the world is the awareness that any understanding of this life is ecological. Humans, after all, possess the innate capability to integrate knowledge, to correlate experience with norm and fact, to\u2014through connection with others\u2014understand that even the \u201cotherness\u201d of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/dwang-ecologicallyspeaking\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}