City/Nature Scape

The speaker reflects on the noise and distractions they encounter while walking to class. They discuss how cities and the environment are interconnected and how the disconnect between them hinders finding solutions. They emphasize the importance of social justice in addressing environmental issues. They believe that if people cared for their immediate surroundings, they would also care for the world at large. They express hope that focusing on smaller things will lead to a more humane and loving approach. The speaker concludes by highlighting the shared nature of spaces and the need for them to be repaired. The sounds they hear ultimately represent this interconnectedness. As I walked to class this morning, it's hard to sometimes center my own thoughts, you know the sounds of the cars, the sounds of the construction, and loud music, which part of it is nice because you know that everyone else is also doing their own thing, making their own path on their way to work, or school, or wherever they may be traveling. The other part of it is almost kind of absurd because you're looking around, seeing the nice rolling hills around campus, and shockingly the sun is out. And I think one hard thing related to the bustle of cars, especially in the campus area during certain times of day, and around the city just all day, is you never really get a chance to think about how much of an effect separating the city from the environment is. The environment has on how we combat what our environment has gone through, because we obviously know how bad carbon emissions are, and we know how bad cities are for the environment. And we often think, oh, in this space, this city is here, and this is what's ruining the outside environment, the pretty glaciers, and waterfalls, and mountains. But in reality, those all share the same space, which is true, it is true, and air quality is certainly worse in cities because of all of those things. And the fact that there is such a disconnect, the reason it makes it hard for people to find a solution, a true solution, in my opinion, social justice is environmental justice. And in many people's environment, which is a city life, or even if it's a suburban area, or it could be a rural area that they've called home for a long time, regardless if that is what their environment is and that's what they focus on, that's going to be where their attention goes, rather than something that's further away from them that they feel is disconnected, and therefore we have many social justice issues in our spaces, and we obviously know those cause many environmental issues in the same spaces. And so, with the mending of both the social justice issues in these spaces, then things like, for example, the Chetnegovate Amber Snail, or glaciers melting, it seems like an extremely distant and unrelated topic, but at the heart of it, if people aren't sharing the space well, and treating their city well, then why are they going to think about treating the rest of the world well, or truly treating it as the world well? Because if we saw Chetnegovate Amber Snails slithering around the city, inching around, then I think people would definitely have a different outlook on, oh, we need to take precautions to make sure these things are safe. I hope we would. I mean, sometimes it wouldn't even be in the terms of the spaces that make a difference, but that's the hope. And ideally, if we thought that, then more people would have a respect for the smaller things, not just for the small, but even smaller things, not talked about as much and not focused on. And once those things begin to be focused into a space, then a more human aspect can be brought to that risk itself. And I believe once a human aspect is brought to many things, it should just be an aspect of love, in my opinion, it doesn't have to mean being an object. But for a lot of humans, it has to be for them to conceptualize it, and I think once that gets brought to their attention, then they are able to realize that both spaces are shared, should be shared equally, and should be mended. And that's why the sounds you'll be hearing are actually the same.