There’s A Hair In My Dirt

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Man

Like Harriet in There’s A Hair In My Dirt, Larson depicts man in his egotistical essence as he struts through nature thinking he knows it all. When in actuality we have just begun. As a “higher” species, in the sense that we are capable able of verbal communication and intellectual thought, we dominate those species that cannot: the entire diverse world. Striving for this perfection, we have affected the environment and its organisms in many ways, whether beneficial or harmful. Considering ourselves as “higher” beings we tend to ignore the vastness of the world around us; We are blind to the biodiversity of all life and how very small and insignificant we truly are. Because of this we misunderstand and make superficial judgments about life. Therefore, mocking those who do understand what we ignore and neglect.

Walking throughout the campus there is so much beauty. The trees, bushes, plants and flowers are all so amazing and enjoyable to look at. What we do not realize is that they are not there to give us pleasure, either in appearance or smell; they are here for the same reason we are: TO LIVE!!! Everyday of our lives we look at nature as if it were ours, but is it really “ours” or are we its? Every flower, sweet smell and ravishing greenery you see around you is nature’s “nature.” Our mental tendency to think that nature is there to bring us joy has much to do with our egotistical thinking. We think we are the best. Well, did you ever sit down and think that all the species alive today on this earth have made it this far, and we are just spring chickens. Some of these creatures have been around longer than we have; so, who’s the “best” now?

Have you ever walked down a beach in your bare feet and felt the sand beneath them. Wonderful feeling isn’t it. Then you scoop up a handful of that sand and release it into the wind, watching every last grain fall from your hand. Ever try counting them? Too many? Well, we are but a grain of sand on the beach we call earth. We may think we are all “big and bad,” but we’re not the only fish in the sea. “Biodiversity… [is] the variety and variability of life-forms, both contemporary and extinct” (Savage, 1995). Nature is so vast and diverse there are organisms we have yet to see.

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