Dragonflies dart overhead while mosquitos buzz and bite in humidity so high, one can almost see it. It’s hot, maybe 90. The woods called and I answered in spite of the afternoon heat.
I started the day listening to a new episode of a podcast I love. It is jammed full of stories, ideas and insight. “It’s not important to be important,” the presenter chuckled near the end of the recording, which is over ninety minutes long. That’s an hour and a half of ideas and wisdom, yet these six words stood out. These are the words I ponder as I wander the woods on this hot Sunday afternoon.
Like the rushing stream I can’t see through the trees and the yellow flowers–probably weeds–on the edge of the trail, incomplete information piques the imagination. Words taken out of context take on a life of their own, too. Thoughts spin into ideas. Plucked. Out of context is where the magic happens. It’s not fair to quote someone out of context yet, out of context is my favorite place to think.
“It’s not important to be important,” he said. We are all important. I don’t think that was the point. Maybe being important becomes problematic when we want everyone to know how and why and to whom we are important? Perhaps it’s a matter of hierarchy? It would be a problem if I think I am more important than my neighbor and make sure everyone knows all the reasons why.
Humans are complicated.
I look at the trees in the forest. There are many varieties. Some grow by the water, some along the edge of the woods, some grow up up up to reach the sun while providing protection for those growing underneath. Each tree makes a unique contribution to the ecosystem. The forest is alive. It is made up of a wide variety of individual living things that create the whole.
What if humans understood we are part of something bigger? Maybe it’s not important to be important as an individual?
This lake was a 65-foot hole, a quarry. In 1991, 50 years of mining ended, and the area was designated a forest preserve. In 1996, record rainfall flooded Big Rock Creek turning the quarry into a 40-acre lake. Twenty-five years allowed Nature to reclaim this area.
I am pretty sure the mighty oak doesn’t tell the pines he is better than they are. I bet the trees by the lake don’t claim the water as theirs. Trees allow birds and squirrels to trespass on their branches and bunnies to nest near their trunks. When trees fall, the soil becomes rich from the compost of their remains, nourishing those left behind.
Humans don’t always behave like trees. Nature is wise. We can learn from Nature.