A bit of a strange feeling.

As long as I can remember, i've never ever felt that I was a part of nature. I have no connection with nature whatsoever, and i completely feel disconnected from nature.

It's a bit of a strange feeling, but as a guy i never felt part of nature. Because to me men , especially men of the past, personify the destruction of nature, the mechanisers of society , the starters of war, and conflict, and builders who would destroy anything, including others and nature in order to put their own systems and rules in place on top of nature or other societies and whatever previously existed. In this context, i felt that men were ugly and that this uglyness would not represent any beauty, or any connection with nature.

And because i associate myself to this, i feel disconnected.

Now on the other hand, i felt that woman possessed beauty, they were not destructive, and the givers of life, and even my own wife is completely aligned with the moon in terms of having her periods, and her being naturally artistic. I therefore really always felt that woman are part of nature, as they are connected, and represent the beauty of nature and creation. While I myself feel disconnected and ugly (not physical uglyness but more disassociated from nature uglyness), and not a part of nature at all.

My question though to men but also woman especially is, do you feel like you are a beautiful part of nature, or do you in a similar way feel disassociated from nature, or not beautiful at all. Or completely connected and beautiful, and how do you establish such a good connection with nature?

Sorry if this is a strange question. I am actually completely embarrassed to ask it, but it's been on my mind for years, as i cannot shake the feeling of feeling ugly and disconnected from nature for years now.

Our society and the cities we are bred into disconnect us from nature. We are ALL nature's creatures, man and woman, and I do not see a difference between the genders in that regard.

I felt very disconnected with nature for much of my life. I was born in an orchard city, where I would play around trees and in corn fields. We moved to the big city when in was in my teens and I just grew in that concrete environment. Then I discovered hiking in the wilderness. And for my first hike, 2 of us walked for 17 days across the wilderness of central Australia. We saw perhaps 20 other people that entire time. Boom, I became a nature person. And when I returned to the city, it felt awful, crowded, dirty.

I have since travelled the world and hiked all over the place. I can't get enough of being out in nature and feeling connected to it.

You sound a little depressed. I can assure you that nature is still there. Just get out of the city or take an airplane ride. Or better yet, go to a national park. You will be humbled.

I think you put women on too high a pedestal. There's an old saying, the power behind the man is the little woman. Women have certainly started their share of wars and destruction. Generally, yes, women are stereotyped to be more nurturing and caring and men more aggressive, but it's a generality. You shouldn't feel ugly and disconnected. You just need to get out and get some sun.

Hi Xylitol,

What an interesting question.. I read it earlier and I've been mulling on it ever since!

I can understand your perspective from a certain angle, that if you look back at wars, struggles, destruction of the planet, economic wars, that in a general sense you can put a higher percentage of men than women on that pie chart, but I think you have to remember that we have lived a highly patriarchal society and had women been in that position of power there's no guarantee that different choices and actions would have been made if we had been brought up with and lived in a society that had the same influences that men had, to women.

I also think that looking at humanity in this way, like it's one event, is a mistake as we're all in constant flux and evolution and are naturally subject to the society that we live in - so what we see now as detrimental and destructive was seen in it's time as progress and discovery and for the good of humanity (rightly or wrongly).

What once was a need for certainty and survival became a means of control and power (rules, borders etc), which is very often still in today's society disguised as survival and certainty. Often those two concepts become muddled in perspective in a society by market or politics, and common thought is mislead, so control and power rules above balance and kindness.

Along with those ideas about what we now many look at as destructive, there were also amazing discoveries and leaps forward in our understanding about life, the earth and the universe, so there is always light and shade existing simultaeneously, depending on where you want to look.

In terms of men and women I would echo DanZee's comments about how we're brought up - it's extremely common in the west that men are taught to 'do' and women are taught to 'be', so women in general are taught more often how to be more connected with emotion rather than the cerebral action elements of life.

The best way I've found to be more connected to the earth, to nature and to the universe is to get in touch with the emotional/spiritual aspects of self as these aspects of ourselves are the closest intertwining we have to life itself, they're the fuel to our fire and the essence of our being. If someone has been brought up to do rather than to be, this can be more challenging to get back to but there are ways to do it (I'm often found to be prattling on about it on here...!).

I have known so many kind, compassionate and loving men and I've known a lot of not so kind men, the kind ones distinctly know who they are, in their emotional/spiritual aspects and expressed that. Some came from families who actually taught them that, others had to resolve their own past and heal traumas to get there, and I have to say it does make a man particularly beautiful.

Really great interesting question though, totally no need to be embarrassed by it.

Keyman I think you make a few interesting and very valid key points, i myself live in a rather large town, and i don't hate it or feel suffocated, but me and my wife do tend to be housemouses , we don't go out often, and maybe looking searching for some nature like you did and walking more often through nature would indeed make me feel more connected and part of nature, and i think you are completely right in that , especially in Western societies, the individualism is highly looked up against. The one who breaks free from the crowd, the one who establishes their own empire and manages to climb on the top of the ladder making millions or even billions while dumping others who are deemed as useless behind you, to eventually sit all alone up the highest mountain like a god on your throne as you look down upon the rest, symbolizes for me the society of the west. The whole "you either rule or will be ruled' rather than an idea of teamwork or being part of a community that forms strong bonds with each other.

This type of isolation makes people feel depressed though, i've heard one psychologist say that we western people live in the myth that individualism is a good thing. I mean, it's good in the sense that it's freedom, but it's a type of freedom that you might pay for by being completely disconnected from each other. When i was living in an apartment the people didn't even know who was their own neighbor nor cared to know, nowadays you can order your food online, you don't even have to get out of your house anymore, and these social devices like mobile phones, computers and tablets, are in actuality a-social devices, as people gloom into their phones during birthday parties rather then talking to the person sitting next to them.

When i was sitting in the subway in Tokyo, i felt that the only way to connect to the person next to me was not through talking, but by calling them on their mobile phone, so disconnected and uninterested they seemed in the person next to them. I myself have also that problem though, i have a very difficult time (and i don't mean this in an insulting way) to find people around me interesting enough to actually engage in a conversation with them, as i find that the internet or books contain so much more information then a human being. And i think that (although you don't often hear people speak about it), many people have replaced people near them with computers/mobile phones/tablets.

I mean, i remember the time before computers, we used to play family board games like Monopoly and Scrabble "TOGETHER", i at this moment for the life of it ,cannot remember what things I did "TOGETHER" with my family, i even think this could be a widespread epidemic whom's destruction in the form of social disconnection that we just like smoking have yet come to realize.

Danzee, Depressed is a big word, it's more a feeling of unhappiness as a result of disconnection with nature, but like keyman and you said, i definitely need to get out more.

Thank you for taking the time and consideration as well as proposing a multi viewed time perspective that I hadn't even taken in aspect as I was so consumed by the question that it prevented me from looking at it from a eagle bird's view perspective over the different angles that you proposed , as well as thank you for the thoughts you expressed that made me expand my own personal perspective on this question.

Indeed if the woman were the hunters and men the gatherers it might indeed have ended up in a opposite gender situation but with a similar outcome. It makes you wonder if some outcomes are simply fixed by the input that is given. And indeed smoking chimneys were indeed a sign of man's progress, and not so much a sign of pollution. So i'm going to say you are completely right that my perspective on history, simply from my point of view is a limited view , based on my time, my upbringings and the context in which i place them, is a incomplete and different interpretation as at the moment in time they would actually have taken place. It made me understand to a certain point why it's incorrect to put a 'label' on myself, as perspectives evolve over time as humanity learns from it's mistakes.

I'll try to follow everyone's advice to connect more to the earth and nature and the universe with all the tips you have given. By trying to be the kind, compassionate and loving , i hope to become the beautiful person that is connected to nature i desire to be.

Thank you all for the very interesting views you have given.