This blog seems to have drifted unconsciously into ‘big things’ territory rather a lot. Politics, macroeconomics, climate breakdown. Important stuff of course but as someone in no position to affect any of those things also irrelevant in a way. I enjoy writing about these things but it can feel disheartening after a while, there’s so much we could be doing better! On the other hand smaller, more immediate topics feel much more real. Things you can touch, smell, see in action close up. That is where real life happens, not in the abstract world of idealism but in the real world, here and now.

If you've ever tried a mindfulness routine or a wellbeing walk, you know the advice: slow down, be more aware of the current moment. Well, occasionally I take that rather literally and film nature in slow motion. The filming itself isn't even really the point - it's the way it forces me to slow down, to pay attention not just to what's in front of me but to details I'd normally miss. The resulting videos aren't always great since they're mostly taken on my phone, but the memories are more vivid as a result of that focused attention.

The hummingbird hawk moth busily working away in a woodland clearing in Albania, visiting one flower after another, after another. Perfectly suited to its task, its small wings flapping furiously to maintain a controlled hover while feeding on nectar, before flying off to the next flower, helpfully pollinating the plants it stops at. Demonstrating in a very literal sense those connections within nature, relationships that evolved over millions of years between species we see as separate but really are small parts of the whole natural space, nodes on the web of life. This is where theoretical discussion meets real life.

The Swallowtail butterfly I found on a mountain plateau in Montenegro flying in every direction, its larger wings flapping slowly and seemingly creating a completely uncontrolled flightpath. Enjoying the complete freedom of the mountains but still at the mercy of the winds. Freedom always comes with constraints, they are two sides of the same coin. It would have been nice if it could have constrained itself to flying within the camera frame however.

The Pine processionary moth caterpillar line marching its way through the woodland in Sella, Spain. These guys were slow enough not to need slow motion! A very cool sight to see, but don’t touch! Small but toxic, these caterpillars have been branded a pest and are often exterminated on sight but are spreading due to climate change and our predilection for creating pine timber plantations. We warm the climate, plant their food, and then complain about the inevitable result. A familiar tale thanks to our belief that we control the world - we create massive changes in nature, face unexpected consequences as a result and default to killing and destruction as an attempt at a solution.

I wonder which of those serves as the best analogy for humans? Are we chasing freedom but inevitably finding ourselves constrained? Are we busy working away at our own little specialist subjects, trying to create our own economic niche now that we have destroyed our ecological one? Or are we a toxic pest, spreading beyond our natural range and marching ever onwards?

More important than any analogy though is to go back to the original point - slowing down, being aware of nature, recognising that life isn’t limited to just humans, that it flows throughout the world, a vast symbiotic web of life which we are just a small part of. We see clear examples of that when we slow down and look - the moth with the flowers, even the presence of the caterpillars as a result of our own activities - we are still part of nature after all even as we seem determined to destroy it.

That is something I think about a lot in a theoretical sense - I consider myself a deep ecologist precisely because I think that the natural world should be protected regardless of whether it suits humans or not, simply because fixing something is the moral thing to do if we’re the ones that broke it! In addition as Arne Næss originally put forward:

• All human and non human life has intrinsic value, independent of their value to humans
• The richness and diversity of life contributes to the realisation of these values and are values themselves.
• Humans have no right to reduce this diversity except to satisfy vital needs

All life depends on other life, there is no hierarchy in nature, therefore we are no different from any other life, we all evolved together, we have no special feature that sets us apart - no soul or consciousness that is exclusively a human trait. 

However deep ecology is a belief that comes not just from theory but also from feeling. After all, you can know intellectually that nature has intrinsic value by reading, rationalising, considering what makes life, consciousness, what gives something value, but feeling it requires actually being present with other beings on their own terms, with no agenda, no trying to get something from them. As soon as you start chasing goals - even something as potentially valuable as increasing humans mental health through connection with nature - you turn nature into an instrument to be utilised, something to be managed in a way to benefit us, and you lose what makes it nature. Its lack of human control. 

The benefits of being in nature come precisely because of that lack of human control, because for once we can experience a place which has not been man made with a specific purpose in mind, there are no goals, no targets, no KPIs in nature. That goal orientation obsession of humans disappears in nature. Even the goal of ‘connecting’ detracts from the experience. It’s similar to that meditation paradox - You can't meditate in order to become calm/enlightened/present, because that goal-orientation is precisely what prevents meditation. You have to just... meditate. Sit. Be. The benefits come as a side effect of not chasing them. Trying is failing. Catch 22.

I’ve found this often with my own experiences in nature, any time I actually try to feel that connection it doesn’t work, my mind bounces off to a thousand other thoughts - “OK try to connect…  How do you try?... Am I trying now?... Stop thinking!... Am I still thinking?... What about now?” and so on, the act of trying negates any possibility of success. But when I use the process of slow motion recording then suddenly I’m not thinking about trying to be ‘in the moment’, I’m just watching. I’m not even really trying to film, just using that as a way in (or maybe that’s just my excuse for the poor quality videos!)

In a way this reminds me of something from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Arthur Dent learns to fly by being distracted and ‘forgetting’ to fall, so ends up floating in mid air. If you think about trying to fly you very quickly find yourself not flying, but by being distracted you can trick your brain into doing what you want it to without it realising. 

Or rather more succinctly - “Do or do not, there is no try”