Sept 18, 2025
As I have been reflecting more on my relationship with nature, I recognized my relationship is not easily explained as either positive or negative but rather a cumulation of all my living experiences across the world (Tibet, India, Norway & the US) which makes it a complicated one.
Growing up in the most densely populated city in the world did not help in establishing a strong foundation when it comes to my relationship due to the lack of. But experiencing its scarceness and then living in a totally different part of the world offered me a rich perspective which altogether informed my current relationship with nature. What I learned throughout my experience is how my upbringing has shaped my attitude towards nature and more importantly, it has offered me an perspective on the topic of “longing”. Whether I belong in the natural world or not. As unfortunate as it is, I don’t entirely feel as if I belong in the natural world simply because I did not have it (natural world and the access) enough and I am not as “skilled” for the activities that one engages in the natural world. I don’t think this attitude or perspective is just and is even limiting but I could not help but look at myself as “unfit” in nature but slowly I came to realise there are systems and injustices influencing my relationship with the natural world. There is racial element, there is economic, and even gender and national origin in informing this attitude.
A change I am looking forward to is 1. Healing my relationship and appreciating nature without guilt being the default (subconscious) emotion. 2. In doing so, I hope to heal my personal relationship with myself and avoid any sort of derogatory view of myself or my identity markers are “undeserving” or “unskilled” in nature. While nature is the medium through which I am healing my relationship with self, it is highly applicable in other places when it comes to “longing” and I want to be able to feel liberated and belong in spaces whether in classrooms, social groups and other places.
Compared to the natural world, I believe my relationship with devices is where I had more agency and in defining it. It is not good to be reliant and it has degraded my attention span, creativity and personal relationships like many authors from our first week of reading would agree. As part of GenZ, it makes our generation feel especially vulnerable to chronic addiction simply because of the environment, but I have not taken active efforts in mitigating that either. Devices feel like a drug which provides instant gratification while it ruins part of our selves, socially, emotionally and biologically that we ignore.
My goal this semester is to establish a stable and independent relationship with devices through changing my attitude towards devices as something which I can control rather than being controlled by it. I have started my mornings without scrolling and I also want to be able to also sleep without scrolling. I want to start by reading and watching long form content like youtube or movies to regain attention and lastly, engage with nature as a step toward this change.