Nature vs. Man-Made (Trees vs. Buildings)

As I was walking through my block during the morning walk, I was trying to observe my surroundings, not specifically, but was trying to take a general look at the environment around me. For the first time in my life, I made some weirdly obvious, yet never thought about observations. In any typical city, we would usually see two common things: buildings and greenery (trees). What follows is my observation and thoughts from what I observed in my surroundings:

1. Hard and soft: The buildings gave me a feeling of hardness and stubbornness while the trees and the grass gave a feeling of softness. I was thinking that buildings are hard (cement and bricks), and therefore I felt a sense of a barrier and hardness and confusion in my brain. On the contrary, the plants and sand were soft, and thus I felt more relieved and a feeling of softness and comfort as compared to the buildings.

2. Sharp and soft: I realized by looking at the plants and the trees that comparative to buildings, there is no sharpness in nature, while there are many sharp corners in man-made buildings. Imagine a building made of marshmallows!!

3. Confused and content: I thought that the buildings had a great variety and were of different colours and sizes which was confusing to the observer, while the plants were all different yet the had the same basic structure (monotonic nature).

4. Dull and pleasing: I realized that the green colour of the plants was soothing to me, while the buildings' colours were not soothing, yet dull. And as I passed through a gas station of green colour, which was man-made, I realized that it gave me a soothing effect.

5. Swaying and rigid: I realized that the plants were moving gently in the breeze and brought a pleasing effect to my soul, while the buildings were not moving with the air. Thus, they brought about a rigid feeling.

6. Natural and artificial: Another reflection was that nature was naturally coloured, while the buildings were painted. The trees and the sand showed their true colours and the greenery came out with this colour. On the other hand, the buildings were painted and yet seemed dull in appearance.

But these were only external observations. However, as I reached my destination and entered the building, I walked in on the tiles, which felt really hard, yet I realized that the building protected me from the sun. As I opened my laptop , saw a picture of light going through the trees (beautiful art), and realized that this cannot happen with buildings. Nautre continuously creates art, a building creates it once. As I came into my apartment, I sat in an air-conditioned room and felt relaxed. And with that I realized that all the metal to create the buildings and its comforts came from the earth and mentality to design such things came from the human body and so we were given both the materials and mind to build our comfort. Yet we should remember that all this was gifted. We actually see trees and buildings which are all natural materials, yet the buildings are made by human processing, while the trees are made through God's direct processing.

These observations don't mean that trees are better than buildings or that man-made items are better than what nature offers. Each one of them have their own offers to present and it's own advantages and disadvantages. After all, as mentioned earlier, all of what is around us actually comes from nature. We don't really 'create' anything. But what these observations do tell us is that that we should practice using our reasoning and intellect. Thinking will allow us to discover new ideas. Thinking removes the covers from all things and allows us to see things from several perspectives and dimensions. When we see more dimensions, we become more and more aware of our surroundings and this is how our doors of wonder open up!