Seeking Higher Ground

For the most part one seeks higher ground out of necessity, be it flood, tsunami, or hurricane. To flee home, the fear and chaos of leaving everything behind, not knowing what will remain when you come back, is a measure of last resort. I think about the people in Sendai, huddled on rooftops amid the roiling froth of cars, furniture, and buildings. I think about Houston and the endless rain. I think about the Maldives or Marshall Islands, slowly being swallowed by the sea. It is a feeling I hope I never have to experience.

But recently I’ve felt that I might be able to understand. Given the current state of things, I’ve had an impulse to drop everything and run for the hills.

Because make no mistake, we are drowning. Our digital devices command ever more of our attention, and our tailored information diets have eroded our communities and mental health. Our politics are a mess. There are historic levels of distrust in institutions, violence in the streets, and an inability to agree on even basic facts in the midst of a global health emergency. We are increasingly unhappy, and desperate. No matter where you stand on the issues, I hope we can agree that no one wanted things to be this way. We need a way out.

Difficult times bring out the fight or flight response in people. But I can’t see how giving in to cynicism and fear, retreating or disengaging, will help. And I don’t want to be yet another person spouting on with self-righteous fervor about this or that on social media, persuading no one. We’ve all had quite enough of that, thank you very much. It’s easy to see all the ways that even a sincere desire to effect change can result in only more anger and confusion.

So what is an adequate response? If there is a way through all this it must be at least in part to not lose sight of the things that are important. To remember our humanity. To create. To find the things that make us whole and express them. Because one can also seek the high ground for its own sake.

Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains. The views are spectacular. I love the smell of balsam fir and whistling of white-throated sparrows in the air. Even the feel of my feet on the rocks—I stand taller; I feel stronger. The sheer scale of it all! I can always count on them for relief from the malaise of the daily grind. They remind me there is more to life.

Those experiences are still mysterious to me. The natural world has a power over our lives and imaginations that goes to the root of who we are as a species. It reflects our most basic fears, desires, and dreams and is the stage for the human dramas of history and culture. It is no wonder that stories about our relationship with the natural world—all its complements, contrasts, and sometimes collisions—capture something essential about us. They are a way to make sense of those things outside of our control and find a place in this world.

That’s the purpose of this blog—to seek a wider perspective. I want to interrogate my own thoughts and explore the topics and ideas that captivate me. I want to learn to speak my mind clearly and in doing so get a few things off my chest. And like any art done for its own sake, I hope it connects with people. Because in times of collective tragedy, grief is magnified all the more by being felt in isolation. If it were only shared, it would feel lighter.

Consider the ancient Turkish city of Hasankeyf. Located on the Tigris River, it was long an important trading post on the Silk Road. Over the centuries, it was conquered and reconquered by the Romans, Byzantines, Mongols, and Arabs, and its culture and architecture are testament to that rich history. But not only that. Its cliffsides also hold Neolithic caves and dwellings, used up to the present day. Many of its residents can trace their family history in the city back centuries.

In 1997, the Turkish government approved a new megadam to irrigate the area and power Turkey into the twenty-first century. But the $10.5 billion Ilusi dam, promoted as a way to provide peace and prosperity to the impoverished region, quickly became a point of controversy. There were allegations of corrupt dealings in the approval process and skepticism that profits would actually flow to residents. Neighboring Iraq, itself reliant on the Tigris, worried that water would be used as geopolitical leverage in regional power struggles. Banks withdrew loans based on international disputes. Residents feared they were being sold out.

But despite it all, the dam went ahead. Hasankeyf, it was decided, would be a victim of progress. Local resistance did little to slow things and this year the city was inundated, along with much of its architecture, including a 13th century palace and a 15th century mosque. The Neolithic dwellings were carved off the cliff faces with heavy machinery, and other precious archaeological sites were submerged, lost to researchers. In total, the dam displaced about 80,000 people in 199 villages. The 3,000 or so of them in Hasankeyf were forced to build again in Yeni (or “New”) Hasankeyf a few miles away. On top of that, the dam destroyed some 250 miles of river habitat, threatening hundreds of species, including the Euphrates softshell turtle and the red‐wattled lapwing, a beautiful shorebird.

So what is the takeaway? It’s unclear to me, other than that things are complicated. There are no easy answers. But it does make plain the fact that we will never get a handle on our massive environmental problems if we cannot see them as inextricably linked to the motivations, organization, and follies of human societies. If we wish to truly understand and address them, we must see all their dimensions.

Earlier this year I read Stephen E. Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage, an account of the Lewis and Clark expedition based on the two captains’ journals. On New Year’s Eve 1805, Meriwether Lewis and his men had just reached the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon, the objective of the expedition, having survived ultimate hardships: harrowing encounters with hostile tribes, cold and exhaustion over snowy mountain passes, and loss of men to accidents, disease, and desertion. They were malnourished and feral, and soggy from the Pacific northwest rains. But the crew was jubilant, celebrating their success with music and dancing with the local Clatsop Indians (the whiskey was long gone). But rather than join the men, Lewis reflected on what they had accomplished thus far, and looked ahead to the return trip, which, with dwindling supplies and worn-out gear, promised even more adversity. He wasn’t sure they would make it. Earlier he had written in his journal:

“This day I completed my thirty first year. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended.”

He vowed to devote “that portion of talents which nature and fortune have bestoed on me, in future to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.”

It is amazing that Lewis was just over thirty years old when he wrote this—the age I am today—thinking he was already halfway through life. While I can’t say I hold, much less am I able to achieve, the lofty goals he sets out, I do share the sentiment. I have waited too long. It’s time.

In this project, I hope to explore whatever terrain I feels needs to be covered, whether out of necessity or, like walking for the sake of walking, sheer pleasure. But while setting thoughts to paper (or pixels) may be a way to keep them from knocking around in my head, they won’t go very far if they can’t also find a home in yours, at least for a moment. Thanks in advance. I’ll see you along the way.