Today I got up in the morning listening to the chirping of birds. It was an apt reminder to me to be with nature. I live in a home which is surrounded by nature. Yet I have not yet realised the beauty of nature.

Then I fed the fish and found that although there are seven fishes in my aquarium they do not fight with each other when I put in their morning feed. They take their quota and peacefully leave it for the others to have their food. We need to learn to live and let live like the fish.

Then it was the street cat visiting us. As my wife fed her milk. She not only had it herself but shared with her sibling. The lesson learnt was that we need to share our resources with people around us. It is possible that we are bestowed with more resources than we need. It is time to share.

Everything in nature is inspiring. We can learn all our lessons in life just by quietly observing nature. The self sufficiency of trees or the kindness or the generosity of animals around us. Each of them have something to share and it is up to us to observe and learn.

I looked at the birds chirping and waking me up from my bed. Unlike the alarm jarring in my ears and my pouncing on it so that I can have a short snooze again, the birds inspired me to get up. It reminded me that my sleep was enough and it was time for me to enjoy the beauty of the morning and get on with the chores of the day.

Today with all the technology in the world assisting us in every walk of life, we are drifting away from nature. We can realise this from morning to night. Unlike the birds waking us up, today it is AI in the form of Alexa or google chrome that  wakes us up. Unlike the morning stroll in the forest or amongst the trees, today it is the tread mill where we aimlessly jog just to prove to ourselves that we are exercising.

Every aspect of life has become unnatural. I am a great fan of technology but instead of enabling us to be better human beings it has possibly made us lazier and less natural. This possibly has an impact on our behaviour as well.

Unlike the fish or the cats which were willing to share with others and were selfless, we are self centred most of the time. We are oblivious of our surroundings and our neighbours. In cities, we do not know most of our neighbours most of the time unless there is a crisis.

In my view all this is possibly because we have moved away from nature. It is time to get back to nature. It is time to live naturally. The movements to recycle things in life is a positive step. The segregation of organic and inorganic waste is also a good step. We need to reduce and possibly eliminate the inorganic waste in our lives. I remember as a child we recycled waste within our homes as all of it was organic.

Let us resolve to be in touch with nature and get inspired by it as my friend is seen in the photo above. Let us lead by example so that our future generations will lead a better quality of life.

S Ramesh Shankar

2nd June 2019