Daniel Frank
Sun reflecting off a spider web. The cacophony of bugs chirping. The crunch of gravel. A dark orange dirt mound, and a bright orange leaf that is dead on the other side. The long shadows on trees and the different colors and textures. A downed tree that supports its own mini ecosystem. Leafy plants on the edge of the river bank of Lake Accotink mirroring the ripples in the water from every motion. The scurrying of a blue salamander, a chipmunk zooming by. Yet even this nature haven is not void of human influence. The mark of the human-altered landscape can be seen all around. Muck on a discarded Starbucks cup, rusting metal beams and tree carvings everywhere. And in all of it, the delicate balance of humans and nature: leafy vines intertwining through a guardrail, and dead leaves on top of live leaves. Every action humans’ make directly impact the natural world.
Meanwhile, the world of digital media has just as diverse a landscape, if not more so. Tweets about bracing for the imminent Hurricane Dorian cover twitter. Trending topics like “Brian Kelly” and “Louisville” revolve around the lone college football game of Monday night, Louisville and Notre Dame. Other departments of Twitter have led to trending hashtags like “#ThingsWeShouldCancel” and “#UnwrittenDormRules.” I have an email waiting for me in my inbox from LinkedIn informing me that I have appeared in one search this week. Brilliant. Meanwhile, my Facebook feed is filled with photos of my friends’ various Labor Day excursions, mixed in with a healthy assortment of memes from The Office. Also making its way into my attention are discussion posts from ZOOKreepers, a Facebook group for animal care keepers, volunteers and trainers. A post near the top calls for enrichment ideas for tawny frogmouths, while another shows a video of a baby tapir just learning to swim.
The diverse nature of the un-natural world draws us in, and holds our attention in a way that, for most, the natural world fails to do so. It is very easy to take notes while scrolling through a Twitter feed or a Facebook group. Headlines jump out to grab your attention, featured images athletically chosen to attract your eye. The very design of social media is created in such a way that it not only draws you in but holds your attention for an indeterminate amount of time. Observing the natural world takes a greater eye for detail and a lot more patience. Important pieces of information aren’t going to come to you, you have to go to it. You have to crouch down to ground level to get a look at that interesting-looking bug or leafy plant. Perhaps that is the beauty of nature: it is accessible to everyone, yet it feels deeply personal to share in a unique experience of physically being there in that moment in a way that one could never feel from a computer screen.