Lake Austin From a New Lens
Becoming environmentally sensitive, and exploring new perspectives and opinions.
Serenity is something I often take for granted. A minute or two of alone time to feel present during our busy lives. A minute or two to reflect on our environment and its beauty. I have come to realize that serenity can be something different for everyone; for me, Lake Austin on a warm, windless evening is where I feel the most serene.
Where do you feel most serene? Most present and in touch with yourself and where you are on this massive Earth?
These questions are a few that I feel I need to seek an answer too in order to become better acquainted with my environment. Finding peace and calm in a typically busy and fast way of life has been beneficial to me in my attempts to become more sensitive toward different settings. Latour writes that in order to truly become sensitive you must embrace the “everyday experience of being,” identifying how you show up to different environments and experiences in life. How do you show up on a calm day in the open air versus a busy day in traffic on the way to work? Can you still find appreciation for where you are?Can you still be present?
Through my exploration of an environment that I not only am studying, but that I hold close to my heart, I have sought to answer questions like these myself, but I have also sought to spark a desire to encourage others to do the same. I decided to focus on feeling the “aesthetic,” as Latour would put it, of my environment, while also getting a feel for how sensitized others are to an environment in which we share the beauty and resources of.
On Wednesday, April 14th, I took the long way to the lake, allowing myself to observe it from above, gaining a different than usual perspective. This was the first place I decided to interview. I pulled over and decided to take some mental notes of how I was feeling, what I saw and what stood out. From an almost bird’s eye view of the lake, things looked much different than from a shoreline or boat view. From this high point, the lake seemed much more serene than it would’ve felt from my typical standpoint. Without hearing the sounds of the waves crashing, boat engines rumbling, music blaring from speakers, and the wind blowing through the trees, the lake felt like a movie I was watching from my couch. The boats and their wakes seemed so small, and as for zebra mussels, you wouldn’t even know they were lurking below. From this spot, the natural topography surrounding the lake and the developmental advancements stood out.
Gaining this point of view provided an eye opening experience. Even though I was standing on the cliff edge of a busy road with cars flying by and the hills rolling down below, I felt disconnected from the chaos, and engulfed by the peace and quiet in the “scene” below. I felt that I could become present on the lake without even being there. I felt I could hear the sounds of a ski boat flying by with a skier in tow, the sounds of the waves following suit. That I could appreciate the cool water below without actually being in it. For this interview, perspective was everything to me and it left me wondering how it would make someone feel who potentially isn’t as lucky as I am to be spoiled by Lake Austin so frequently. Would they have these same sensitive thoughts? Would they yearn to be in the water just as much, if not more than I do?
Exploring this setting that I feel like I share a bond with has caused me to feel emotions toward it and on behalf of it. In environments I’ve had positive experiences with, I tend to genuinely care about issues or changes that may be occurring within these environments. The fact is, not all humans feel this way about the environments they reap the benefits of. To be honest, I have found that environmentalism is a relatively challenging to wrap your brain and emotions around, and I only feel that I have truly taken steps to become more environmentally sensitized in the past few months.
Below I included a picture from my fieldwork that I believe I can link to my practices of being present in my environment. It is hard to deny Lake Austin’s beauty in this image I took; if anyone asked me to show them why they should care about becoming sensitive and appreciative for the lake’s environment, this is one of the images I would share.
After my pause to reflect on the side of the road, I ventured to a dear friend’s lake house to interview him about my topic and the lake in general. My interviewee is the current owner of Executive Watersports LLC, and my summer boss, at just shy of 20 years old. Going into the interview, I had hypothesized on what his answers to my questions would be. I assumed that he would share the same concerns and frustrations as I did, but I was pleasantly surprised by how incorrect my hypotheses were.
This interview prompted me to reconsider the issues surrounding Lake Austin’s ecosystem, rather than looking to the economic and social issues of water treatment. My friend feels more sensitized to the foreignness of zebra mussels, worrying more about how their presence might effect the other organisms in the lake’s ecosystem rather than infrastructure and recreational equipment. Hearing his take made me reflect on my goals to sensitize Austinites to an issue they might not know, or care about; going forward I don’t feel like there should be one specific issue or outcome I need to share with my readers, but many different facets and viewpoints I can entertain.
For my second person to person interview I wanted to gain the perspective of someone who has more years of observing Austin under their belt. I figured no better person to interview than my father. My dad and I have always shared a similar passions and are excited by many of the same environments. Having observed Lake Austin for 20+ years, my dad expressed some of the same concerns as my friend in my first interview: increased boat traffic, decreased natural vegetation, and increased development. What was different though was that my dad flat out said “I’ve never seen those mussels,” referencing Zebra mussels, but also said that his lack of concern for them is largely due to his own ignorance to the fact that they’re there. This was pretty interesting for me to hear, seeing as it has basically been my argument throughout my research. People aren’t sensitized to factors that may be impacting their environment and the city they call home.
Although my dad isn’t very familiar with the mussels, he was able to give me some additional insight on the social and economic impacts the inefficiency of water treatment might cause. He said “clean water is my biggest concern, not only to drink, but also to recreate in,” following up with his belief that having water treatment issues could turn into something that “is going to end the growth in this town,” which he claimed “an old timer like [himself] wouldn’t mind.”
Both the interview with my dad, a man who’s lived in the same Austin neighborhood for 20+ years, and with my friend, who shares the same love and excitement about the lake as I do, sparked some additional questions I want to explore:
How can we spark people to become more sensitized to the environments they benefit from? How can we provide a spark of environmentalism in people through perception and being?
My fourth and final interview was sitting on the edge of a friend’s dock during a misty rain. I decided to take a time lapse of about ten or so minutes of peace to be found on Lake Austin during the bad weather. Although it seems gloomy or dreary, these days are some of the most calm, where the people who are most sensitized and gracious of the lake come out.
Although this interview was from a physical perspective I’m accustomed to, analyzing the differences of the environment when its not at its most “desirable” was a new perspective in itself. Ideas of serenity returned to me, and the worries of excessive crowds on a Friday afternoon were not applicable. I felt like I was seeing a different “personality” of the lake, a slower and more easy going side. Although you can see one surfer passing through the time lapse, one boat passing by in ten minutes on a Friday is something I likely won’t see for the rest of the summer. By exposing myself to this alternate climate of Lake Austin, I have taken another step to becoming more environmental. Just because we don’t necessarily recreate or enjoy our environments on days that aren’t sunny and 75 degrees doesn’t mean that we can forget about them and all that they provide for us.
By carving out some time to interview people and places about and afround Lake Austin I feel that I have accomplished my goal of becoming even a little more sensitized to this environment. Although my work isn’t done, my person to person interviews prompted some further research questions I want to explore before my final piece is published. My person to place fieldwork took on different approach, a desire to practice Latour’s ideas of sensitization and “being.” Through gaining different perspectives of my environment, I feel that I embodied Latour’s ideas and truly felt what it meant to feel serenity.
Works Cited
Dudrick Stern, Presley. “Field Report Time Lapse.” YouTube, 19 Apr. 2021, youtu.be/GQi_WNEMQbQ.
Latour, Bruno. “Sensitizing.” Morality or Moralism? An Exercise in Sensitization, edited by Emilie Hache, vol. 16, 2010, pp. 311–330.
