Wednesday's Words for May 7, 2008

Spring is my favorite time of year. I’ve lived in a fairly large city, and I currently reside in a small town. But I’m a country girl at heart, as I spent the first 18 years of my life living in a rural community and I’ve always loved spring because of the renewal and re-awakening of nature.

Spring is also the time for planting, for putting tools into the ground and breaking up the earth that had been matted and flattened through winter’s fury. One of the things that I especially enjoy doing during this time of year, again reflecting my country-girl roots, is to drive along rural roads. Nothing is prettier, to my mind, than fields of rich dark earth newly tilled, ringed by green, green grass and budding trees.

Part of the reason I cherish spring so much has to do with the sunlight. Suffering each year with S.A.D. – seasonal affective disorder – I’m always happier and more upbeat in the spring. This time of year also means I can put away the heavy coat, scarf, hat, gloves, boots- the necessary accoutrements that weigh me down so in the winter.

But the other reason that my blood races and my spirits soar during this time of year is nature itself. In spring, I feel connected to all of life, to this entire world. I really feel a part of it.

We like to think of ourselves as being completely civilized, removed from ‘nature’, far different than the other creatures that inhabit this earth. Theologians will tell you that we are vastly removed from ‘animals’, as we have a soul; other academics may argue that we’re not animals at all, because we can think and reason, and we understand our own mortality—and we have opposable thumbs. These arguments have great merit, and are a part of the truth.

But what is also true is that we remain creatures of nature, tied into the biosphere known as planet earth, and while we take pride in mastering our more animalistic instincts, we haven’t eliminated them completely.

More and more, scientists are leaning toward ‘the big bang’ theory as to the origin of the universe. That means that everything that is, began as a single entity. If that’s true, we’re all connected—to each other, and to every living thing on this planet.

I was thinking about all this just the other day. Now that I have a teenaged male living in the house, my thoughts wander down entirely new paths. I was thinking about we humans as basically natural creatures, and wondering if we could look at what is considered ‘undesirable behaviour’ in that light.

This really is a different world than the one I grew up in, and even, to some extent, than the one I raised my kids in. And nowhere is that more obvious to me than in our schools.

There is a zero tolerance policy in the schools these days with regard to what we used to call horse play, or rough housing. Now, please don’t get me wrong. I am totally against violence, against people getting hurt, and against people living in an atmosphere of fear.

However.

Taking into account everything I believe about us being a part of the natural world, I suggest we need to acknowledge a salient fact: the male in nearly every species has a ‘rite of passage’ and that quite often involves what we could term aggression. There are laws in nature, including the one that calls for “the survival of the fittest”. There is a reason for that law. It ensures the continuation of the species, keeping it strong so that it will continue on into the infinite future, protecting it from being lost to extinction.

If we’re going to circumvent that law by preventing our young males from answering the call of their ‘natural animal’ and engaging in natural aggressive behaviour, then we had better ensure that this aggression is satisfied in other ways. And I believe with everything that’s in me that this aggression must be satisfied.

I don’t think it’s co-incidence that fifty years ago, when boys were allowed to be boys in the schoolyard, with rough housing and the occasional fist fight, no teenager ever took a gun to school and shot his classmates and teachers to death.

Yes, I do realize that the challenges facing society in these modern times are complex, and that the so-called ills of society need more than simple band-aid solutions or sound bites.

But I also wonder if we’re not ‘political correctness-ing’ ourselves into a deeper, darker malaise than we could ever possibly imagine.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com/
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