I like to write my name
without capital letters: robert wolff
Yes, I have a special connection with tigers. I grew up at a time
and
in a place
where there were tigers; I knew tigers in the wild. The first time was
when I was about eight. I was on a pony that
dumped me after running into the jungle. The pony ran back, after I
picked myself up I saw a tiger. Yes, quite
possible, then and there. As I remember it: “I saw the tiger,
and the tiger saw me; and the tiger smiled.” After some
breathless heatbeats
the tiger disappeared, as tigers and many other wild animals do. I
walked back to our vacation house in a daze of glory. Tiger is
for me what totem animals are for Native Americans. In Hawai’i
families sometimes have a family animal, ‘aumakua -- but, of
course, there
are no tigers in Hawai’i. (There is one white tiger in a small
zoo on this island -- such a sad place. I visited this tiger but once).
I write about Nature and "all my relations," as native Americans used
to say.
All the beings and aspects of my environment that I relate to: the
feathered people, the four footeds, the two legged people; trees,
plants; weeds; storms, sunshine, wind, rain.
I write about people I have learned from, people I admire.
And about animals and plants that I learn from. About the
fasciating
beauty of the chaos that is Nature, its iinfinite interactions: everything is related to everything else.
And sometimes I write to remind us that WHAT THERE IS IS ALL
THERE IS.
You want 'facts'? Born here, lived there, worked
somewhere else, married, children (grandchildren, great grandchildren),
degrees, appointments,
disappointments. Yes, all of that -- I'm old.
I am a
human who belongs to the planet, to Nature more than to
Man’s world. I’ve had a wonderfully exciting life, traveled
a lot, lived in many different countries. Speak a few languages --
which is essential, I think, in order to be able to understand more
than one point of view.
As I age I feel more and more obsessed by"simple."
Doing without rather than getting more. One of my favorite authors,
Ursula K. LeGuin, writes "Owning is
owing, having is hoarding." Very true, very wise.
The world of Man is not simple.
This world we made for ourselves is a knotted mess of rules and
regulations
that force us to be what we were not born to be, ever more destructive.
we pride ourselves on owning this planet. We can't, of course. We
are as much part of the planetary
ecology as a flea. But we have power, we use force. And with that
force we are abusing, destroying the planet, our only home. Now, in
2010, I can't
see how we could
prevent our man-made house of cards to crash.
I know, you don’t want to hear that. In my thinking facing the
truth is not
negative, it is the absolute first essential for survival.
Yes, I have hope. After the collapse, which will not be 'pleasant' or
easy-- a collapse that will undoubtedly significantly reduce our number
-- but 'after', ultimately, our species may survive, finding itself in
a new
Nature. And the species, of course, is what survival is about. Life
goes on. Not my life, but Life as in all-life-of-this-planet continues
way beyond an individual life span.
And what's more, I fully expect that we will rediscover
talents and abilities we have always had but that have been
brainwashed out of us by our current so-called civilization. Humans
survived for a few hundred thousand years on this planet by adapting to
the environment we found ourselves in. We will do that again, adapt to
a new Nature (because it will indeed be 'new').
Perhaps then we will be smarter and realize that we can adapt to the
world as it is, that we cannot-- should not even try--to change the
world to our wants.
And that, my friends, is what I write about.
The Big Island, called Hawai'i, February 2010.
And if you want to get in
touch, you can reach me at:
ketua
(at) me dot com I try to answer all emails.