Wildness
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Wildness is a group of methods, or the level of organisation needed, for living and existing in the natural state. Wildness (the method) is most clearly found in wilderness (a place where wildness can work uninterrupted), causing everything there to become wild (the state achieved in each organism after wildness). Wildness explores behaviours, thoughts and processes irrespective of human bounds, and is typically free and daring. It nourishes biodiversity, sustainable growth and the development of a web of ecology.
While other animals use wildness to establish their position within an environment, humans no longer accept its judgements. Wildness is no more if captured or turned to task (tamed). In the Philosophy of nature, there can be a distinction between the "natural" and the "artificial". In this context, wildness produces things that are natural, while humans produce things that are artificial using methods that are compliant or controllable. Humans now also integrate many artificial rules, beliefs and boundaries into their behaviour and mind. As a method, wildness can also be used outside pristine wilderness areas, and make inroads into the human world. Some undisturbed regions of the urban landscape can become wild and unkempt, as wildness is the natural state and will enter wherever it is not actively rejected or pruned. Animals domesticated by humans no longer access wildness freely. However, if they escape or are released from care, they may abandon taught rules and pursue wildness, which can make them feral, and may also enhance their chances of survival within an environment to which they did not originally evolve. Also, humans may tame and feed the once wild animal, lesssening its ability to use wildness, and return unsupported into wilderness. National Parks often have signs saying ‘Don’t feed the wild animals’.
The artificial method of living may be the fundamental cause of a variety of psychological problems now facing humans. The benefits of reconnecting with nature by seeing examples of what wildness can achieve, is an area being developed by ecopsychology.
Wildness is used by animals to become efficient and adjusted in nature. It allows the natural animal to develop an intuition for its environment, and linkages that make it feel a part of the land. Due to its pursuit of unshielded possibilities, wildness encourages parsimony during the development and coordination of one’s understandings, instincts and emotions. It is a cutting process (like Occam's Razor) that exposes bare bones and truths, with no room for pretence and favourites. This feature can make wildness seem tough, but it also provides a stable foundation upon which nature can build. A sense of accomplishment or eureka can be the reward for using wildness, when it finds a simpler way through a complicated maze that was inhibiting life.
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” -- Henry David Thoreau
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