The inexhaustible bearing of Things In Themselves
As Proust would have it, the objects that surround us are an inexhaustible fount of meaning in our lives. They’re a source of emotional memory, a connection to the past or future, a mode of sustenance, a focus for meditation … and so on. We ought to be grateful for the marvel of their presence. And this applies, especially, in respect of the natural world.
I don’t know if there is a specific word that captures this sentiment, but every time I find myself in moments of solitude out in the natural world, whether on a long hike or while sitting for hours on the beach at our family cottage, I am overwhelmed with a peculiar kind of nostalgia and melancholy at the realization that the objects I encounter, however they may be constituted, have existed before me and will continue to exist long after I’m gone.
Moreover, it feels as if these objects have fully developed lives of their own … or a kind of existential sovereignty … even though, most of the time, we’re talking not just about actually living things like birds and trees and flowers, but also about water, rocks, mountains, sand, streams, and a vast arrays of other such inanimate natural forms. It’s as if they’re just “doing their own thing,” … carrying on with their quiet existence, apart and away from the cacophony of humanity. … All of this is worthy of contemplaion.
