Going Home

I live in two worlds. From 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, I live a typical modern lifestyle, interacting primarily with 21st century humans in an air conditioned, high-tech corporate facility. But when I go home, I live with the birds and trees and insects and grass and deer and other life forms that surround my home.

Over the past year, I've grown more and more comfortable at my place. I really feel at home there now, and I think I've finally been welcomed into the neighborhood. I don't fight with the insects like I used to when I first moved in. And I'm getting to know the habits of the birds around me. I know where the deer live, too. I've visited their beds when they were out for the day, and smiled to myself thinking about how each of them picked out their own little spot to rest.

Over the past several generations, we modern human have progressively separated ourselves from all the other life on this planet. I don't think that we intentionally set out to do that, but that's where we find ourselves nonetheless. We've placed ourselves so far away from other life forms that one might conclude that we are indeed something unique, something really different. But we're not.

A plant cell (left) and an animal cell (right).
All plants and animals, from humans to insects to a blade of grass,
are nearly indistinguishable if you look close enough.

The rest of life on this planet is still there, like it always has been, waiting for us to come back home. We've been gone for a long while now, so it takes some time to get reacquainted, but I think the feeling of belonging that comes from living close to nature is well worth the effort of going back home and getting to know our cousins again.