BYEN OG SKOVEN | THE CITY AND THE FOREST
Originally written in Danish: “The formula buy-sell is the opposite of something magical.”
abeautifulresistance.org/site/2021/5/26/the-city-and-the-forestTHE CITY AND THE FOREST
Only the rarest of people are as indifferent about littering the forest as they are the city. I am reading that “the Danes are generally good at taking care of nature and leave it in the same condition it was in when they arrived” (My translation from greenupdate.dk). On the other hand, there are sweepers employed to remove all that garbage that many people throw in the city streets. These are two opposite ways of relating to a place. To call the employment of street sweepers very civilized is something of an exaggeration. It would be truly civilized if everyone stopped throwing trash in the streets. The city longs for it. The city dreams about being more like the forest. The inhabitants of the city are dreaming about being more like inhabitants of the forest.
You cannot throw anything “out” because there is no “out” which is equal to “gone”. The idea that there is no “out” is so simple, it is almost invisible. A human who throws their trash in the forest is called a ‘litter lout’. Within that term, there is a clear evaluation and judgment of that act, which speaks of a respect for a place that could be transferred to the city as well with great results. The city is always a potential landfill. If no one were employed to sustain it, then all these remnants that are being thrown, with a clear aura of indifference around this act, would soon outgrow people.
In the city, you can consume your life in ways that are made invisible by employees like street cleaners. And exactly that consumption offers itself and is being sold by some as the only option there is. The so-called “fear of missing out” can turn into a restlessness which tries to avoid the consciousness of its own existence. Like a pair of mental scissors, it cuts time into little pieces. At its worst, it is a template for an existence as a tourist, where one does not have to seriously understand and sense anything because one’s experience of, and fingerprint on, life is presented as temporary instead of invaluable. It is an idea of transience, a rigid form of aesthetics, which, in the worst case, is made synonymous with human life itself.
Human life, as an idea with possibilities for being created, is not fleeting, it is constantly occupied, bursting through with experience. And to be alive, as much as possible, is to perceive one’s own potential at the same time. If that potential for experience is sold and bought, then to experience and to live can become synonymous with consuming something that has already been designed. This is in contrast with changing and co-creating as a part of a dynamic world.
The formula buy-sell is the opposite of something magical. To go into the forest repeals the dominant idea that everything is a kind of barter, and where wealth is judged to be the same as having a lot of money (which is a poor definition). This idea of “having achieved something” is emphasized at times as being the same as having been so greedy that you — all alone — have accumulated material wealth. I find that to be incredibly empty.
I see emptiness and greed as inseparable Siamese twins. Greed and emptiness lead to the idea of a walk in the forest as a waste of time by a business minded person. “What am I supposed to do here?” A person who believes life is about owning, buying and selling would think like that. And this idea of ownership is not just concerning “material things” in the world but also ideas and “opinions”. Attitudes towards life that are more like rigid templates made by prejudices, than deep, nuanced and empathetic meanings that are open for change. Such a person will look at the idea of being educated as being quite immutable because they will confuse life’s flow, life itself, with a specific kind of language. In this way they will play experts in areas where there are, and can be, none.
The above-mentioned, education, first and foremost, leads to a dictating behavior that would rather see clones of itself in the world than anything else. And the most disgusting of all, probably, is the idea that some people have about dividing humans into “winners” and “losers”. The only way I think the expression of being a loser can be used is when it is acknowledged that it is truly loser-like to only dare “to play the game as it is”. Then a person has truly signed up for being a fleeting character in a life where they deny taking on their own ungovernable and unpredictable responsibility. For this very reason, the expression “to turn one’s back on society” — which is often used with contempt by these businesspeople who so sickly believe they own the world — means in reality to “sign completely in” to one’s own life.
To “sign in” to one’s own (inner) life is to be educated through an inviolable peace. The truly educated, used as fleeting figures here to prove a point, will try to avoid dictating what others must do or be, especially what they can become, or, even worse, what they are supposed to experience. The totally blinded, which are again fleeting figures to prove a point, will, in contrast to this, often try to act as an expert on behalf of others.
I use the word education here as something ongoing that everyone can take part in, because it concerns any being’s inner life. The word education is not used as a warning against making mistakes because mistakes are important. To gain and use experience without making mistakes is impossible. I assume that any reader, like myself, can remember a time in their life when they did something that later felt like a real low point, a feeling of being completely out of touch with a situation and therefore literally away from themselves. And then at a different time, experiencing the opposite, a true high point, where the feeling of being at home in every way felt like a mysterious gift.
The former situation is often connected with trying to take too much control, while the latter often has an atmosphere of letting go of control and using one’s intuition and empathy. It feels like one is being truly educated for a brief moment in time. When I think back on moments such as these, I remember that I really listened and nothing else. I suppose that a lot of people also love being educated like that. To learn about feeling connected is hard to explain, it ought to be experienced.
These days, during the lockdown, more people go for a walk in the forest. To remove the idea that something template-like makes you feel more at home, more “like yourself”, is what being in the forest can do. To dare the peace, because, paradoxically, peace is something to be dared now, it is, in that respect, the real, invaluable wealth that so many people are experiencing again. And, unsurprisingly, this experience is perceived by some as confusing, disturbing, maybe even dangerous for a while, because “the fast life” — where everything and everyone is considered for sale or up for review at any moment — has solidified itself as necessary in the minds of many. In that way, the feeling of really owning your own time, maybe for the first time in ages, can be perceived as provocative before relief sets in. To own one’s own time is deeply important.
Empathy is linked to mystery, body language, intuition, love and respect for another individual — human and other-than-human. And the world can never have enough of that because it creates dynamic, ecstatic, free living for all. As an opposite to that, there is nothing revolutionary about just breaking down one’s private sphere, as if it is a kind of heroic act by itself, because this behavior can end up worshiping narcissism instead of empathy. It doesn’t do justice to the human spirit and to the infinite possibilities connected with that.
A real revolution against having one’s own time hijacked, through a distorting belief in constantly “being updated”, could be in the shape of waiting for the forest’s invite. To be seen, truly seen by the forest, is what I would call it. Letting go of any programming, and just being.
Businesspeople, in a broad sense of the term — which includes people who only define humans as subjects and any other beings as potential dead products for consumption — have already “reviewed” the forest before parts of the forest find their way into books, for instance. To confuse an infinite, wonderful forest with some measly made park and a price tag, glued on by “reviewers”, is a problem that starts when the business approach is considered a model, led by people who have “a good grasp on life”. To treat the city with the same respect as the forest is to treat others and oneself with respect. And it is a fine response to, and a good fight against, the capitalistic use-and-throw-away-mentality.