Jacqueline Thornley: Natural Experience, Noland Trail

Paper?-check, pen?-check, backpack?-check, phone?-check, CNU ID?-check. I had everything I needed to start the class on the Appalachian Trail, well… almost everything. Open mind? Nope, can’t check that one off the list. Now don’t get me wrong, I was perfectly excited to have a class out on the trail and away from the stuffy classroom, but did I really believe my way of thinking would change or that I would get any profound meaning from the experience? Negative. I figured I would go to the trail, write a little about the calm nature of the water or the way the light hits the trees or the yadda, yadda, yadda. You get the gist. Yet when I left the trail I wasn’t thinking about how pretty the trail was or how nice of a day it was, instead, I was thinking about apathy. I was with a group that decided to go back early, and since they were my ride back and I had somewhere I had to be at 4, I went with them. We didn’t take any time to stop and reflect like the assignment asked and displayed more apathy than even college kids should have. So I started to wonder, do other beings have the ability to feel apathetic? I don’t think I’ve ever looked at my cat and thought, wow what an apathetic creature, lazy sure but not apathetic. I don’t think they have the luxury of being apathetic. So why do we? The only reason I can think of is all the comforts of home. Everything is done for us. We get lazy and just don’t care. And when someone asks us to step out of our comfort zone we just don’t want to take the time to grow. Perhaps if we spent more time in nature and had more responsibility for our general welfare then we wouldn’t be so out of our comfort zone and so quick to laugh off an assignment.