Planning My Post about Nature and Mental Illnesses

For my final blog post, I will be talking about the effects that nature has on mental illness (specifically depression and suicidal thoughts) and how that ties into the Romantic period. Personally, I have struggled with mental illnesses but have experienced a sense of peace when I am out in nature that cannot be paralleled by anything else, so I am excited to write about the beauties and benefits of spending time in nature. I am currently gathering thoughts and ideas and am in the process of making a general outline for the final post.

ESA: Species Savior

by Haley Brown

The stakes are high when it comes to conserving the earth's biodiversity; is the Endangered Species Act up to the task?

The bald eagle is one of the ESA's success stories.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is generally considered to be a positive program. A poll from 2015 showed that 90% of Americans support it. Since Richard Nixon passed it in 1973, the act has aimed to prevent animal and plant species from going extinct due to human interference.

Ecologists agree that legislation to conserve biodiversity is necessary—each species plays a unique role in its ecosystem, so the loss of any can be detrimental. However, ecologists disagree on the ESA's efficacy. Currently over 2000 species are on the list of endangered and threatened species covered by the act. 99% of species on the list are still around, which some see as a success. However, critics are more focused on the mere 1% of those that have been recovered and removed from the list. So how should we measure the ESA's success? With the condition the earth is in now and all the destruction humans have inflicted upon our natural neighbors, the ESA's success can really only be judged justly by the species it has kept from extinction.

That's What I Was Gonna Say

Something Big: The Black Hills

Alyssa & I at Mount Rushmore

I stared up at the faces looming before me, their detail lessened the distance between them and me, but their size defined two separate worlds.  Driving through the Black Hills reveled greater depth and greater height.  It was a sea of rocky mountains and trees.  It was expansive and unending, and I felt small.

Something Broken: Partners in Crime
We ran up Old Main hill, taking pictures and laughing as we usually did.  But something had changed in the past year.  My best friend, M, and I were partners in crime, running buddies, doorbell-ditching pals, and homework helpers.  But something shifted the last year of high school.  We still had our share of time together, but the camaraderie we'd had changed.  And soon we spent less and less time together.  Our first semester of college together was the same, and even though we said we were best friends we never reached the point of closeness we'd had before.  She left on her mission the week after I came home, so who knows what will happen when she gets back.

Something Artistic or Man-Made: Servant or Master?

My favorite part had arrived.  All else evaporated into the silence and I closed my eyes.  The music led my hands from one key to the next--ever pulling, demanding, hungry and desperate to expose itself.  I thought I was the musician here.  Yet I felt something that my fingers couldn't express: it transcended physical ability and captured what couldn't be spoken.  The striking melody was both haunting and beautiful; calming yet intensifying; satisfying but at the same time disappointing--for nothing else could articulate what a wordless conversation had inspired. (see Khachaturian Concerto Part I below; see 3:22 or 11:14)

Something Mysterious: That's What I Was Gonna Say

I opened the email from my mom with anticipation.  The previous week I'd asked her to send me my biological dad's address.  At the end of the email she said, "Oh that's funny--Alyssa asked me the same thing last week too."  We, my twin sister and I, were both serving missions and this wasn't the first time (nor the last) something similar happened.  My older brother frequently yells, "Jinx!" as he hears us say the same thing at the same time.  Often when Alyssa and I are talking, I say what she's thinking (or vice-versa) or we finish each other's sentences.  And although we only have a few of the same clothes, we nearly always wear them on the same day.  

Can "Mean Girls" be the Solution to Avoiding War?

When I was in high school, I was asked to write an analytical essay on a book by Victor Davis Hansen entitled "The Father of Us All." The author claimed that war was the resting state of society, as it were, in the same way that it takes effort to constantly smile instead of just having a default resting face. In other ways, war is the natural way for mankind to resolve any sort of disagreement.

Reading Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes reminded me of that principle. Hobbes writes, "It is certain, that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war." (Hobbes, 35)

 This fascinates me because it sounds like both men agree that people would always be fighting unless the organization of society is almost literally restraining them through authority. 

As I was trying to decide whether I concur, I remembered once hearing someone compare the NFL to the Roman Coliseum. Are we naturally bloodthirsty, but capable of using proxies to satisfy that bloodlust? Then I read this line by Hobbes, and suddenly things made a bit more sense: "In the nature of man, we find three principal causes for [war: competition, distrust, and glory]. The first makes men invade for gain, the second, for safety, and the third for reputation." (Hobbes, 35)

If the warlike mindset is our natural state, maybe it follows that in the absence of a real conflict, society substitutes other institutions to satisfy those natural instincts. 

In modern America especially, capitalism allows people to acquire the property of others simply by outmaneuvering them in business. Society and especially technology have advanced to the point where DNA testing, cameras, and a dedicated police force take personal safety to a whole different level. Even just the advent of the streetlight radically changed the way nighttime itself functions. And in first-world countries, with the poverty line drastically different from many others, personal problems can much more be resolved through social revenge rather than physical revenge (think Mean Girls). 

Perhaps these are just the musings of my brain to try to understand the philosophy of the question, but perhaps there is a valid point here. What do you think?

Image Credits: "Pollice Verso" by Jean-Leon Gerome 1872, "2006 Pro Bowl tackle". Both licensed through the CC for non-commercial reuse.