For as long as I can remember there has been a part of me that cared. Cared about people, cared about the world, cared about happiness and joy.
I remember wondering, when I was a child, why is this world so harsh? Why are people mean?
I forgot for a long time and got wrapped up in the world of trying to fit in. The world of fast and easy food. The world of distraction and entertainment, video games and TV. Increasing levels of disconnection to who I really am… to the point of confusion, depression and disease.
After initially choosing to study Engineering at university through being concerned with making some good $$$ 
as an adult I found it so boring, so dry. I had nothing in common with the other students and out of over 400 people in my course I had a single friend. Another individual, from the mountains, who was as confused as I was in his choice to study this subject.
After a trip to France and spending some time with my cousin in the mountains, walking through the forests with him something deep inside of me shifted. A seed was planted… one that eventually germinated and only now is starting to grow.
I returned to Australia and dropped the Engineering. I could no longer relate to that world, I could no longer fool myself that I actually cared about that, that doing so for a living would make me even more miserable than I already was.
I decided to study Environmental Biology and then found myself as an adult wondering again… how can we have let so much damage happen to the place in which we live?
How did we create such a toxic world?
There is a deep sadness within me, partly for my part in the destruction of this place and partly for the disconnection from my nature that belongs out there.
We do live in a toxic world.
It is not a negative statement, it is a simple fact and the faster we realise this the quicker we can turn it around and do something about it.
I do not subscribe, not for a second, to the extremely misguided view of humans as a destructive parasite. Instead I see us as incredibly influential and powerful beings.
When I was studying Permaculture four years ago my amazing teacher Geoff Lawton said something that has resounded within me since…
“Surely if humans are capable of such destruction then we are as equally capable of the same level of nurture”.
We live in a day and age where every breath we take is polluted from toxins belched out by factories producing crap we don’t even need and food that isn’t even food. There is not a single place on Earth now that does not have DDT in the air from our incredible arrogance thinking we have the right to destroy entire colonies of other animals on our own whim.
We have an ocean that is depleted of it’s life to the point where other animals are going extinct merely by being out competed for food by us… and what do we do with all the stuff we take from the ocean? Most of it gets thrust into cans where it literally rots and then smothered with sugary sauces or cheap oils to 
dilute what would be a rancid taste. Add to that the extreme amounts of chemicals being poured into the ocean to the point where it is not even safe for a health-conscious human being to eat most seafoods due to contamination by mercury… and then add to that now even fish are having reproductive difficulties due to the massive amounts of phyto-estrogens formed by our man-made plastics and chemicals in shampoos and soaps (that many people ignorantly pour on their bodies) being washed down the drain and into the ocean.
We have our food supply so corrupted and processed. Meats pumped full of growth hormones and anti-biotics. Seas of useless grass, useless to our digestive systems that is.
Most of the food people eat these days isn’t even food, it’s chemicals mixed with mushed up, bleached and processed stuff… gunk that does not in any way even resemble anything that looks like you could find it in nature.
And even for those people who are still compelled somehow to consume something that really looks like food, vegetables and fruits, most of them are so covered in pesticides and pumped up by force feeding salty fertilisers on them. Add to that now the world’s soils have become highly deficient in mineral content.
For most people life is spent moving from one chair to the next in an entirely artificial environment. They sit at work blasted by air-conditioners in tightly sealed boxes only occasionally interrupted by an uncomfortable stroll to the toilet where they might manage to squeeze out a bowel movement through 
the layers of hardened feacal matter lining their intestines. Finish work and into the car to sit again in a blast of air-conditioning, or heating depending on the weather for the long ridiculous commute home. Where they will collapse, usually exhausted, into a chair to be bombarded by mind-numbing soap operas and comedies punctuated by brainwashing commercials for more stuff they don’t need.
And then, for those who still have some semblance of family, it is on to the dining room table to eat what I hope still at least looks like food… although for many dinner is probably consumed in front of the TV and microwaved out of a packet or perhaps brought to the door in a box by some pimple faced teenager.
I could go on and on.
The simple point is despite the extreme resitance of many to admit, humans and nature are inextricably intertwined. There is no separation no matter how hard we try to create one. No matter how artificial we create our environment to be, we are nature.
And if we damage nature, we damage ourselves.
This is easily seen by anyone who shakes off the slumber of sluggish dullness for just a moment and looks around.
Things are not looking good, and it is time we do something about it.
For me I am finding my own way out of the tangled maze. My first step, the acceptance of this destruction, happened a long time ago. I am well into my second step, rehabilitation.
I still have a long way to go yet I am far enough along now to see where I was. There are many who have walked before me and they have left tools and signposts for the way out of this mess. I will share with you the tools that I have found on my way to be the most effective, in the simple knowledge that your freedom and happiness adds to mine.
Walk with me… and perhaps soon we will run, together, through the mountains and the forests.
