The Quiet Life

This past weekend I was in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada attending an education conference. It was a long time between visits but I was happy to be returning considering how little the city has changed: it’s a “big”, small-town, as it were.

I met my longtime friend Dan, who brought me up to date on his life, keeping busy producing his own documentary films and working as a nurse in a group home.
I like our visits because we never seem to be affected by time; every visit feels like it was just yesterday when we last met. It’s good to have friends like that because they help bring you down to earth.

We got to talking about the notion of personal introspection and the need for human beings to "think." We agreed that the technologies of cellphones, computers, television and iPods, have really taken all that time away from us, historically speaking. Said Dan, “in the old days when were gatherers, once we did our daily chores we sat in the jungle and thought. We weren’t distracted by technology the way we are today.”

This got me to thinking about our society’s infatuation with the digital toys and our neglect of the world’s environment. I realized this as I drove through the Ottawa Valley passing farm after farm. We’ve lost touch with our organic connection with the earth. We don’t grow the food we eat and we don’t participate in the nurturing of the planet. We consume and let someone else handle the planting and the harvesting.

Consequently, I think it’s important for us to pause and pay our respects to the farmer and people of the land. We seem to take them for granted yet they are intelligent business owners who have strong intuitions and acute senses, particularly their sense of smell. While I wouldn’t be able to trade my city life for the country that quickly, at least I gave it some thought and I’ll try to do so in the future.

That’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.