Writing, Science, and Nature: Making Sense of Being
September in Northwest Indiana was like revelry to me as a child. It would knock on my door one morning and bring with it a cool wind that warned me to wear a sweater to school. Soon, the falling leaves and great migratory birds would flutter through my dreams like visiting friends. I looked forward to this short period of transition every year, the period of migration in which so many birds would fly over the lakes and moraines region of my home. Salamanders and tortoises would begin the race to their deep burrows to hide from the coming frost, and the sandhill cranes would rest here on their way South.
Their gray wings painted the sky, chattering all around us. I would stand on a wooden viewing deck that extended over the Great Marsh with the birds going about their business, cheering in the air like their onlookers were the audience. Some floated low, dipping their toes in the water. Some fed in the deep. Hundreds stood in the marsh grass like a herd of grazing cattle.
It’s small encounters, like this one, that create our appreciation for nature. It’s watching the life cycle of the goldfish in your pond, the water striders on the lake, or the spring blooming of your neighbor’s flower bulbs that build and — for me — one day create an obsession for nature. For many, the natural world represents an escape away from a mundane life. That only scratches the surface of why we, as humans, are so fascinated with nature and its science. Great nature writers like Annie Dillard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Barry Lopez, and many more have already outlined this human fascination with nature; so why keep exploring, why keep writing about it? When we let the wonder of science and nature creep into our lives, it becomes an inescapable part of us, something we feel we must return to. As Mary Oliver puts it, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” In many ways, we write about nature–and therefore science–because science explains the “how” of life. Writing about it provides an avenue of reaching the impossible and persistent conclusion of “why” life is.
The argument about the spectrum of consciousness of living beings has always troubled me. How vain of us to assume, as humans, we are the only ones who feel or that the lack of consciousness of plant life is any worse than our own? While I spend time investigating–writing–my own questions of why and how, I find humor in our conquest for knowledge like this, as if my own intelligent capabilities blind me to the complexities of the lifeforms we believe to be simpler than us.
Sy Montgomery’s work with cephalopods and mollusks is a great exploration of this idea and deserves every bit of recognition it has received. Sy writes of a visit to the New England Aquarium, where she and the head keeper watched their eel at feeding time. A nearby voltmeter measured the brain activity of the eel and would typically light up at feeding time. This time, the eel did not respond to food, but later, the voltmeter glowed during his slumber, indicating a dream. Montgomery quotes Plutarch, “All men, while they are awake, are in one common world; but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.” Recent research suggests some mammals actually exist in REM sleep, dreaming, more than humans. Therefore, I find myself returning to the question, what makes our lives so much more valuable?
Writing about science and nature is as breathing is to living. We experiment, creating research and observations that draw together the pieces of the world–which after all, has already written its story. We mosey our way through its marshlands, plains, and woods searching for a reason to relieve or perhaps accept our solitary existence. Every spring, I find myself drawn back to Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a novel my great high school English teacher, Mr. Timothy Nance taught. Annie Dillard has inspired in me a great deal of new, natural awareness while reminding me of a similar wonder I had as a child. She reminds us of our ignorance of nature’s nuance: “If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn’t believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe….No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe.” A childlike sense of exploration of the world allows us to heedlessly connect to Earth–land, sustenance, and community–while setting aside supposed human prestige. No strict human sense can be imposed on natural science without blinding us to its primitive functions.
Of course we are naturally bound to familiarize ourselves with our environment; but we must remember, while exploring and writing, to put our humanity aside and let nature’s complexity be enough to inform our existence. This is why, after all, we write about nature and its science. All of the answers can be found there, yet asking for them seems like a very human stupor. All that is left is to write, humbly, and to wonder.
