“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together…”
-The Beatles


Last night I lay in bed listening to the crickets chirp outside the screen door. They chirped in unison, all together, like one giant cricket hidden somewhere in the reeds. It occurred to me that these crickets have achieved a perfection we humans have never attained. We sing— each of us in a different key. We interrupt each other— our voices interjecting our own views and opinions. Despite our attempts to achieve this perfect state of unity with inventions like metronomes, pitch pipes and so forth, we fail. Unlike the crickets, we humans have grown apart from each other, our natural instincts completely forgotten. Oftentimes, we label this condition as uniqueness, a pretty word for a sad thing. We are so intent on individuality that we neglect to maintain and nurture relationships with one another. If everyone continues to grow apart, and forget their connection to the world and to each other, mightn’t this out-of-snycness become a thing to fear?

This problem has, I believe, arisen from our immediate environment. Experiments have been conducted with eggs. Put an egg in front of a speaker at a power metal concert and, within five minutes, it will be hard-boiled. But a metal concert is not a natural environment for an egg. An egg is laid in a nest, perhaps on a branch or inner hollow of a tree. Nature takes this small, almost-spherical object and turns it into something that can sing and soar. Brought up in its natural environment, the egg becomes a bird—the course nature had planned for it. In front of the speaker blasting foreign noises, its innards coagulate and the egg can never reach its intended potential.

We humans are like the egg at the concert. We are no longer raised in our natural environments. We’re displaced, subjected to the roar of machinery and all things unnatural. We turn out adequately, but only according to the standards we have conceived while living amidst the industrial whirs and clicks and bangs. Where an egg would be hard boiled, we manage to survive. But! Imagine if we too were born where nature intended us, we were raised in our natural habitats amidst the song of the crickets and birds. If an egg raised in its natural environment can become something that can make music and fly…imagine the possibilities we humans would have, away from sounds that curdle our insides, both mind and body. We would fall back into the rhythm of the world and thrive in tune with our surroundings, pure, and in the manner intended.

I decided as I lay there listening, that this is the way the world should sound. You see, my world is not limited to my school, family or community, but encompasses all of nature and its many facets. This was the world that I grew up in, and it is rapidly changing. By no means do I suggest that we regress to a less civilized and advanced period of time, but that we become more aware of the impact our innovations have upon the world and on each other. If we can find away to decrease the roar of machinery in our lives, we may find the voice of our fellow humans ringing more clearly and comprehendably in our ears and minds. Perhaps by reducing distractions from the artificial elements of our lives, we may better focus upon our relationship with the world around us.

As I thought these things, I felt my heart begin to beat in unison with the unanimous chirping of the crickets. I felt it beat inside my chest to a rhythm so archaic that no one on Earth today would recall a time without it. It made me feel as though I had a place in this world where so much is lost.