Few activities recalibrate me as powerfully as an honest walk. A walk free of technology, free of distraction, and… free of companions. You might label me as socially-adverse. I prefer the label inwardly social. You see, I too thrive in the fabric of social fortitude. But the kind of walk I most fancy is the natural sort. Being surrounded by pheromone producing, electromagnetic signal absorbing vegetation, sensual in every measure you can fathom. And on this excursion I too yearn to socialize, but not by means of words; rather, by means of energy exchange; energy exchange among the species of all biological kingdoms; from the simple-celled algae, to the herbivore mammals, to my fellow neomaniacal humanoids.
I become very protective of this communication protocol; wary of any perturbation an unsympathetic companion may inadvertently cause; egotistical. As such, I prefer my walks solitary, such that I may socialize with the full range of presiding life form. Inward socializing.
But I also have an itch for adventure. And no better way I can conceive of an adventure-packed tale than an inwardly social, woodland excursion through uncharted territory. In all likelihood, many have tread and chartered, for I don’t wish to misguide you akin my aspiration. No, I mean lands uncharted by me. I prefer to conduct my own charting rituals.
Furthermore, no territory can ever be claimed exhaustingly chartered. Our attempts to charter the fractalized landscape carry as much promise as a two-dimensional gridworld pacman in chartering a polyhedra.
Let us venture out into the forestry. Pine, gravel, and mineral deposits under our feet, the legs quickly accustom to the non-planar surface. The healthier growth, for its inability to absorb the greens, graces us with the endless natural tint we normally take for granted. The less fortunate specimen, resigned to continuously decreasing levels of porousness, appear less fruitful and more sickly pale.
And the scent. As with color, much information nature has encoded for the olfactory exchange of ideas, lest one shut the senses and refuse to communicate.
They aspire to little beyond the continuation of the miraculous cycle. The pollinating sporophytes seek but to reproduce, some by strictly vegetative means, some by grace of wind, others by mutual affiliation with an insect to aid the pollen transfer in exchange for nutrition, and a select subset by means of a particular symbiotic interchange. Some highly specialized angiosperms stake their odds on one sole opportunity of a lifetime. They either reach maturity, flower, produce pollen, and hope for a vessel in the form of a singular species of a creature to consolidate the affair, or, simply vanish.
I’m especially fond of the simpler-celled organisms in the botanical hierarchy. How about the moss? It needs no roots to seek underground nutrition, no stems or buds to reach maturity, no pollination or flowering to reproduce, no leaves to collect water or facilitate photosynthesis, no seeds to spread, no thick cell walls to fortify, and no elaborate expansion strategies or parasitism to sustain a high-maintenance existence. An energetically undemanding and laissez-faire organism, moss does much with very little. Vulnerable only to continuing extremes among the light, temperature and moisture levels, and provided some shade, it grows where others cannot. It occupies the shallow surface and perpetuates, be the soil rich or limiting, be the shade heavy or barely perceptible. It provides little but also asks for little. And yet as with many a simple mechanism, it blesses with its presence.
There is much to inwardly communicate about. One needs but rise and set sail. Be open to enter one door and emerge elsewhere. You may arrive of one pigmentation and depart beyond recognition. One philosophy phases out another. One apparition innovates, then becomes legacy. Transformation besets the one who communicates in this differentially intractable journey. Be silent and communicate.
Questions, comments? Connect.