We are all inextricably linked to and part of nature, whether we realize it or not. Living inside human civilization, this connection can easily be obscured, narrowly-defined, or in any number of ways minimized and disconnected from our daily lives. However, it’s often that we never truly understand what we have until it’s gone, and as Brooke Jarvis explains in “The Insect Apocalypse is Already Here”, our definition of what is “normal” is always conditional on what we’ve personally experienced – the “normal” natural world we know is different from the “normal” of our parents, and our children’s “normal” natural world will be dramatically different from our own. Jamail Dahr argues that we must allow ourselves the opportunity to re-assert these connections to a vanishing natural world while we can, and to process what will be gone in the future – and to grieve for that change if necessary.
Choose a moment in your life where you experienced a connection to nature. This could be a certain locale, an event, a relationship with an animal/insect, or any experience not strictly defined as part of living in human society. Compose a personal essay 4 pages in length about this experience, detailing its significance to you in the context of an irreversibly changing natural world.
Sample Solution