How many insects do you see as you walk from class to class? How many different trees do you notice? Have you seen the flowers growing on the lawn? Have you seen the vultures circling campus nearly every afternoon? Do you feel the warmth of the sun as you walk outside? Or the gentle bitterness of the wind? Or is it a longing to be somewhere else? Are we aware only of where we want to be? Or are we aware of where we are here and now?
Environmentalist and composer John Luther Adams comments on the current state of human society by writing, “In this time when we humans have become a geologic force, most of us live in increasingly homogenous environments, and in the amorphous non-places of the internet. Searching for real experiences in real places, we travel to far-flung destinations, where we make photographs of ourselves to prove that we were there. Yet it’s increasingly rare that we are fully present anywhere, and the knowledge that we truly belong to any place eludes many of us.” Adams so eloquently describes what I believe to be a deeply entrenched problem: we are no longer present.
As a college student in my last semester, I have been thrust into a world of constant questions about my future. Where will I work? Where will I live? How will I provide for myself? Where will I be in five years? As of right now I cannot answer any of these questions. This may seem like an anxiety-inducing position to be in. I assure you, it is. But questions of what comes next should not force us to sacrifice our awareness of where we are right now.
By no means am I arguing that we should sit around all day with stars in our eyes, writing cliché poetry about the meaning of life. I am simply reminding us that the future is not everything — if anything at all. There are people who we will meet and there are places we will go. But there are people and animals and plants in the place where we are right now. Do we know who they are?
In his quote, Adams reminds us of two things. The first, we need to experience. We need to experience real things. We need interaction with people and with place. The second reminder is that so many of us are not allowing ourselves this interaction. We travel far and wide to find to find a sense of place: to have real experiences.
Adams’ proposed answer to why we travel to “far-flung destinations, where we make photographs of ourselves to prove that we were there” is that we are not present anywhere. Most importantly, we are not present here, in Harrisonburg, VA, where many of us spend most of our time throughout the year.
When I asked how many insects you see as you walk to class or if you felt the sun or the wind or saw the vultures, I was not asking to create a competition of who can see or feel more. In fact, I am not concerned with how many insects or birds were seen or to what degree you felt the sun or the wind. I was really asking one question: are you present? Are we present? Do we really know this place?
As I ponder what the next few years of my life will hopefully look like, I do not do so by going to the “non-places of the internet,” as Adam’s calls them, or traveling to some far-off place. I sit outside. I go for walk. I look for insects. I learn who the plants are and who the birds are and how much they need the sun and the rain and the place where they are.
I do not learn who I will be in a place I’ve never been, I learn a little bit more about who I am in this place, here and now.
As we walk to class or wherever we may be going, be present. Let us learn who the trees and the plants are. Let us learn who the birds and the insects are. Let us become aware of our need for the sun and the rain, our need for this place. Let us be present in this place.
