Thinking like a
mountain is a term coined by Aldo Leopald, but how are we to
understand it?
There are many
interpretations of thinking like a mountain which are too
static for me. Too bounded by thinghood and human mortality.
Something limited by birth and death, whose influence extends no
farther than three score years and ten (ish). Life is so often portrayed as
a thing amongst things. What if we viewed it as a process interacting
with other processes, stretching into the past and future far beyond
our ephemeral span.
So if we are to think
like a mountain, not only must we see ourselves as an integral part
of the ecological structure, as it is today, as it is this decade,
generation or century, but we also need to understand our self, our
being, as one of the many formative influences in this age of the
earth. Yours and my influence extends to the far future. Long after
we, as a physical beings are dust, our decisions and actions will
still be influencing the world we have long since departed. Will that influence be for good or ill?
The question is: Would
it make any difference to the way we behave if we did not escape the
long term consequences of our actions? If by some means or another we had to
live with them indefinitely.
This is the question
that lead me to write 'Atlantis Eternal'.
Why treat something as
serious as this as fiction?
Because it's more fun to write
and its more fun to read. QED.
