Our Addiction to Chaos.

In the summer I spend a lot of time in the woods, camping, hiking, and rafting. I was raised to respect every living thing right down to the smallest grasshopper and blade of grass. I was taught to always leave a place the way I found it, never leaving a trace that I was there, never polluting things for future travelers. “Always take everything you have brought with you when you leave.” I was told. “Never leave behind anything harmful, or ugly.” This was the lesson I learned as a child from my elders. So I walk lightly, and carry things out with me. But is it enough? Every time I take a step, a mark is left. Every time I lay in the grass, I kill the very thing I am enjoying. The more I do these seamlessly harmless things the more I realize that I am leaving an irreversible mark. The trails I leave will eventually grow over if I stop visiting this spot, but under the fresh grass my trail will remain embedded in the dirt below. The grass where I laid will never grow as tall. I just wonder if all I need to do to destroy a place is to simply be there. Perhaps it is true, that we are just a plague on the earth, consuming everything in sight. Maybe it is our nature to do so, and if so I am challenging the very instincts that make me who I am. Why do we keep doing things that we know are harmful to the little worlds around us? Is it greed? Is it instinct, or addiction? Is it just sheer stupidity? And why if we know it isn’t helping the things around us can we not simply stop? The answer is simple, but slightly disturbing for me. We keep on our destructive path because we want to deep down inside. We crave the chaos of the destruction that is created when we venture into uncharted territory. I believe that most people think that they are basically in control of the world around them. I have recently been reminded that this isn’t so, and we are all just living in a popular delusion. We may not see the damage we do, or the little things we leave behind, but we continue on our destructive path just the same. We are too close to a situation to see the truth. We will hurt only ourselves in the end. The destructive behavior needs to end some time. The problem is like any other addiction. We tell ourselves that one more time won’t make a difference at this point. And the next time becomes the same, and soon you are in a repetitive pattern that is becoming out of control. The only thing to do is to wean yourself, and this usually only ends in more procrastinating, or just simply quit. Stop the behavior in its tracks. Resist the urges day by day not to connect with that pattern of the mind. In short you basically have to rearrange your whole life, and the schedule you have made for your self. But the most basic part of addiction, and repetitive patterns is this: the fact that I really like what I do and don’t want to stop.