December 15, 2016 - 16:21
In my last essay, I expressed my fear of “nature with all its infinite silence and unpredictability”. Does silence help me or us (humankind) as a society? In education, teachers/professors tell us to be quiet for a test or to take time alone to think about a concept, but does silence allow us to actually reach any solutions? When we are young parents tell us to time out, leaving us with only our own frustrations and anger, alone in our own silence. Yet in in these interactions we are hardly ever in actual silence. Even right now as I write this, as I think I am in silence, I hear the hum of my computer and the mumble of the TV coming from downstairs. So why would I be afraid of nature’s silence, and why does it leave me feeling vulnerable to an unpredictable world? Well I see no clear answer why silence disturbs me so much. I could blame this on my upbringing in a city but I have heard others from various parts of the world, “hate” the silence. “Porous Bodies and Trans- Corporeality” by Stacy Alaimo and “Human Cells Make Up Only Half Our Bodies. A New Book Explains” by Jonathan Weiner speak about the susceptibility of our bodies to accept outside bacterias and other bodies (organisms) because of the porosity of our bodies. What does that have to do with fear of silence? Well I believe that our modern society with all the buzz and technology that keeps us preoccupied throughout the days, simply tending to our own thoughts in a silence that completely holds the unknowing is a threat. A threat like this terrifies us because we feel alone-- alone with our porous bodies.
The two articles by Alaimo and Weiner leave me wondering what it means to be human. Alaimo explains how we are totally vulnerable to our surroundings and Weiner says that we really are made up just a large variety of cells of which only half of are considered “human”. As humans we feel so above nature as to view ourselves as a separate entity. Weiner mentions to us thought that, “The human genome consists of about 25,000 genes. But the combined genomes of all of our fellow travelers are about 500 times larger.” So we are made up of so many entities, yet we fail to connect with them. I learned in my Geology class, if the timeline of the Earth were represented by a human arm, human life could be brushed off the tip of a fingernail. So as a species we are so young and we have not yet acquired the skills to understand what we are, although we have the egos as though we do. For me, I have never necessarily considered myself “bonded” with nature because I enjoy living in the human constructed societies. Technically I am bonded with nature through our respiratory process, but in terms of feeling connected outside of a purely scientific way not really. It does not mean I don’t believe that we shouldn’t do something to help save our planet from the pain we are afflicting on it, but I can also see why the process of making more significant changes has yet to be instituted. Our disconnect/fear of nature, allows us (I am generally using “us” as a human society as a whole, though I realize efforts are trying to be taken) to make any real change. Alas, with all this disconnect, I have failed to understand what the silence of nature means.
The meaning. There is no meaning to it, only a truth said to be found in it, yet again our fears/anxiety about what unpredictable truths lie in that silence. Well I think I am actually coming to realize an analogy to our fears of it, or at least mine in particular. Humans have just been born and the nature is our parent. We have yet to understand it, and we are afraid of what nature holds in its silence so we distract ourselves in our own communities to ignore these fears. We are afraid of death, because we view it as a threat. In nature, the porosity of our bodies, leads us to to feel like a victim, that lead us to our ultimate fear, death. Alaimo says, “... every encounter between bodies modifies the bodies that encounter one another, such that their affects– their capacities for acting and being acted upon –gain or lose power.” A human’s biggest fear is losing power, and any source that has that ability is considered a threat. So our bodies are really a threat to ourselves because we have the ability to lose power to the simple forces of nature.
Alas, we are afraid of much more than an infinite silence in nature. Even now, as I say continue to say “we” and “our” when I should say “I” because even now I feel afraid of feeling alone in my fears. Stacy Alaimo and Jonathan Weiner’s articles display how afraid we can be of nature. In that nature is an infinite silence that scares me and why is because we realize just how vulnerable our minds and bodies are. To be vulnerable or weak is frowned upon so we want to gain power, yet instead we continue to lose power to the bodies that our bodies interact with. Although we do whatever we can to not lose power (the reason for the push toward antibacteria), we cannot fight what our bodies are made to do. So there are a lot of layers to are push against silence, and the silence used in education in a human society is different then the silence nature produces. In a human society, silence gives us time to find what we usually consider a solution but in nature there is no solution only our minds. Our minds in the silence of nature, then frighten us because we think about the porosity of our bodies which leave us vulnerable. In the human constructed society, we are not as afraid of the silence because we feel comfortable/safe with our efforts to combat bacteria which nature does not provide.