The wilds live
on in the imagination of human beings, but originally we humans were part of
the wild world. We were great hunters
and killers of animals, but we were also eaten by them, gored, bitten or stung
by them. Diseases with no obvious remedy
ravaged us. The weather blew over us,
and how it blew determined our lives. We
moved, hunted, gathered, told stories and reproduced. We had only a little control over the
environment, and the contingency of life was uppermost in our minds. Here
today, gone tomorrow, and you are old if you reach thirty.
In our
imagination the wilds are populated by wild animals, animals hostile to human
beings, including other human beings, the most dangerous animal of all. Wolves are out there, howling under the moon,
running their prey down through the snow. Tigers, lions, panthers, and other
vanishing species are padding through the jungle looking for prey. That is the
wild.
For the
majority of people now alive, in many parts of the earth, the wilds are
imaginary. There are no wolves howling in Trafalgar Square, no tigers
inhabiting Hampstead Heath, no panthers roaming the South Downs. Many wild
animals are rapidly becoming extinct. We no longer have to worry so much about
being eaten alive by a hungry carnivore. We have other worries, far from the
wilds, like paying the mortgage or rent, procuring money to buy the means of
life. We look for work and spend most of our time there in a regimented
situation. That is not very wild. Now, to be in a motorcycle gang, that is a
bit wilder. Tarzan is wilder yet. He
talks to the great apes and, like them, swings from the jungle trees.
The image of
the wild is triggered by the coming of pavement and large semi-urban
landscapes, where the Awild@ is supposedly kept out. The more I meditate on the idea of the Awild,@ however, the more I see it everywhere. This said; let me grant that
house pets and most human beings are not that wild. They are conditioned from
an early age to blend in with whatever culture is operating in their area.
There has been a >taming' of man over the centuries, and attempt to get him to control his
feelings and exercise prudence and good sense in his actions. The attack on
pride and elitism in the ideology of Christianity worked to continue this
training and taming of man. Nevertheless, we still see horrible massacres
carried out up close and personal, with knives and machetes. This shows that people can still be wild with
the right incitement. Wildness is the dark center of our being, our origin, and
we will carry it within us as long as we are recognizably human.
However, my
perception is that the wild has never been stopped, or even slowed. One day
grass will grow on our freeways. There is no cement that can withstand the
operation of wind and water and plants.
Take away the human beings to maintain them, and all the roads, bridges,
towns and buildings will fall into decay, and if some intergalactic anthropologists
were to cruise along two or three thousand years later, it would be similar to
exploring ancient Mayan sites, which the jungle had mostly reclaimed.
The wild does
not stop just where our imagination tells us it should, somewhere far away, at
the poles, perhaps, or maybe in some parts of Scotland. We tell ourselves, "That is where the wild is, and it is so sad that it is dying out." This is a wrong idea. The
wild is outside your doors, in your gardens, whether English or even French. It
is in the park, the river running through town, the little wood on the hill.
The ducks that swim in an ornamental lake, like the one in St. James Park, have
no idea that it is not a wild, wild world. The rats that run through the
buildings find in them a primeval forest.
The roaches and bugs that come out in the night still have to worry
about being eaten and finding something to eat. The wild is all around us and
in us. It is true that parts of this wild world have been tamed and put to
work, but it is an illusion to think that it is not still a very wild world
indeed.
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