The World Is Not For You

The Bible says a lot of fucked up shit. It also holds brilliant insights and wisdom as old as time. And it’s up to us as fallible people to interpret its commandments and parables. Twenty-six verses in, we have a perfect example of this tricky dichotomy: 

God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

dominion, but not replenishment

Let’s assume ol’ Yahweh is up there looking down on us. And let’s assume this commandment is really why we were created - to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it, having dominion over everything else that lives and breathes on the planet. If that is truly central to our purpose as humans, we’ve lost sight of the “replenish the earth” bit. You may now be thinking to yourself “Shit. Another article about the Holocene extinction, climate change, and ocean acidification.” And you’re wrong.

This is an article about frightened birds and sidewalks. 

When I was 24, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up. Freshly heartbroken and anxious to start over, I left California for a job in Seattle. I packed what little I owned and moved in the summer when the days were long and beautiful. Work was soul-sucking, and I looked for every opportunity to make friends and get outside, which is how I met Adam. 

Adam had been a naturalist with the North Cascades Institute for years. He’d spent multiple cold, rainy winters in a solitary cabin in the woods, learning about the animals, trees, and rhythms of the natural world. He was fascinated with permaculture and biodynamic farming. I’d been a rock climber, mountaineer, and canyoneer for almost a decade, but the way Adam taught me to experience the outdoors still blew my mind. It started when I learned about the bird plow.

The bird plow can be triggered when a newcomer enters an area in which birds and other animals are peacefully doing bird and animal stuff. If that intruder moves through the space in a way that doesn’t feel safe and predictable, the birds will use their body language and some noise to make themselves known to the newcomer. If the newcomer respects their space and adjusts its behavior, harmony persists. If the newcomer continues to behave unpredictably (and potentially dangerously), the birds will all scatter, flying up and away. This alerts all the other nearby birds and animals that something unpredictable or dangerous is coming. This alert ripples through the woods, prompting everyone to run or hide before the threat arrives. From the first person perspective, the bird plow doesn’t look like much, but I’m sure it’s a sight familiar to most of us.

I began to notice and learn about other bird language calls and behaviors. What could I observe in my day-to-day, even living in downtown Seattle? Scrub jays and little sparrows flew away making unhappy noises when I walked down the sidewalk towards them. They were looking for food, and I had interrupted their lunch. Before, birds and squirrels that darted out of my path on a sidewalk didn’t even register on my radar. Crows playing out some sort of hierarchical perching order would squabble with each other on powerlines above. Nesting birds aggressively chased other birds away from their nest trees. The city was full of non-human persons living their lives too.

I questioned whether I had any more right  than birds did to take up the sidewalk, and I began to experiment with different behaviors to see if I could be more considerate. I would slow down as I walked up to a bird on the sidewalk, trying to make it clear that I noticed it and that I was slowing down, giving it time to move off to the side or hop on a tree before I kept walking. I tried using the bike lane, respecting the bird’s space on the sidewalk entirely. I noticed that some birds became even more uncomfortable once I noticed and observed them, so I experimented with pretending not to see them. 

Maybe you’re telling yourself there’s no way you’re stepping off the sidewalk to give some crow space so it can keep munching on some crumbs. And that’s fair. I kind of went off the deep end there. But the important thing is that I was noticing things in my life I had basically been blind to before. What else don’t we notice as we absentmindedly make our way through the day? What impacts are we having that we’re not even aware of? What missed opportunities do we overlook? 

People who grow up and live in man-made environments have spent the majority of their lives surrounded by things made by humans for humanity’s benefit. Roads, sidewalks, buildings, and cars are all specifically for humans to use (ok, sometimes our dogs, too). Even the trees and shrubs on the sidewalk are planted to improve the urban environment according to human tastes. It can lead to an unconscious sense of entitlement that our environment is there for our convenience and enjoyment, that the world is there for us. This is hilariously exemplified in 1-star national parks reviews.

It’s true - if you’re not parked by 8am in Yosemite Valley, you’re not having a great summer day. But it’s ridiculously entitled to say, “Instead of rehabilitating the burned forest in Yosemite Valley, replace it with five parking lots because I had a bad experience.” 

On the other hand, let’s consider something less obvious. Unlike Yosemite Valley, nobody does anything to save and preserve poison oak. It’s a plant everyone dislikes - a pest. Consider, then, how John Muir wrote about poison oak, considering that he was hyper-allergic to it. Muir understood his surroundings were not there for his convenience and enjoyment.

It is somewhat troublesome to most travelers, inflaming the skin and eyes, but blends harmoniously with its companion plants, and many a charming flower leans confidingly upon it for protection and shade. I have oftentimes found the curious twining lily (Stropholirion Californicum) climbing its branches, showing no fear but rather congenial companionship. Sheep eat it without apparent ill effects; so do horses to some extent, though not fond of it, and to many persons it is harmless. Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question, "Why was it made?" goes on and on with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself.

The TL;DR

So what’s the TL;DR here? What to take away from all of this?

Maybe it’s just to pay attention to the human and non-human people you interact with on your next walk around the block. When was the last time you smiled at a stranger as you passed them on the sidewalk? How many birds did you piss off today? 

Maybe you’re inspired to learn more about bird language and how you can relate with nature on a personal level.

Or maybe you want to take a deep-dive into social ecology to understand how this entitled baseline mentality is a symptom of capitalist consumerism and how the main export of the western world is trash.

Regardless, if you’re still here, I hope you got something of value from the article!