Ecology and Experience Quotes

“It may be said, in broad-brush terms, that the primary purpose of life is the continuation of life. A deep program for survival and reproduction underwrites the complex cycles of life, in which death is the grand equalizer. There is, however, a peculiar novelty: human awareness of the cycle of life and a capacity to anticipate our own, individual death.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Sometimes, when we are far from clocks and schedules, we can still recapture a lost sense of place-based time. On a relaxing camping trip or a long day outdoors, perhaps, we can slip back into the rhythm of the sun.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“My passion for human ecology was not a drive for closure—but rather the joy of endless openings and newfound connections. There is no final goal or perfect completion, only the expanding experience of being alive.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Discovering the threads that constitute actual interactions is an essential means of making sense of the world. But perception of overall patterns of things that are contextually related is equally important.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Our deep irrational feelings of death anxiety have been attributed to multiple sources. In part, they may arise from evolved self-protection mechanisms or survival responses of being a victim of predators. They might, conversely, stem from unconscious fear (or guilt) of retribution resulting from our own acts of harming or predation. According to existential psychologists, the most powerful form of death anxiety comes from our general ability to anticipate the future, coupled with conscious anticipation of inevitable personal demise.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Unlike the clonal longevity of asexual organisms, sexually reproduced plants and animals usually have briefer, individual life cycles. In short, the enormous diversity afforded by the evolutionary invention of sexual reproduction came with a price—death of the individual.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Ecological awareness expands the context of life; it also enlarges who we are as a person.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Most intellectual training focuses on analytical skills. Whether in literary criticism or scientific investigation, the academic mind is best at taking things apart. The complementary arts of integration are far less well developed. This problem is at the core of human ecology. As with any interdisciplinary pursuit, it is the bridging across disparate ways of knowing that is the constant challenge.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“For an entire year he saved all of his trash. Except for what he actually ate, everything was sorted into bins. At year’s end, his living room and kitchen were filled with nearly a hundred cubic feet of stuff. Some was compostable. But the vast majority was leftover food packaging. Derfel’s experimentation shows what happens when someone intentionally holds onto everything. The point of his exercise was to raise consciousness about the environmental impact of one individual’s consumer waste. At another level, it demonstrates that we readily discard most of what passes though daily life as useless trash.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“This world by itself is a wonder.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“One of the most remarkable contributions of humans to the world is our capacity for ideas.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“How our attitudes are shaped and defended may be more changeable than we realize.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“The border between personal and transpersonal experience is a complex region. It is a territory often filled with spiritual and religious views. Within psychology it was a significant preoccupation of William James, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, and many others. But these margins may be seen in other ways as well. There is substantial evidence from psychological studies of personal space that we carry body boundaries of extended space around ourselves. These spatial extensions are not only personal. They may be felt by groups as well—in terms of shared “social” space, communal territories, or even national identities.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“The story of our human lineage is continually enlarged, almost daily, by discoveries from physical anthropology, archeology, and genetics.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“The average American child, by age eighteen, is estimated to have seen eighteen thousand murders and two hundred thousand acts of violence on television. The “death play” of popular video games is accelerating these numbers to ever-higher levels.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Death is universal. The rituals associated with it, however, vary substantially—and are greatly influenced by their religious and cultural context.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“Viewing ecology through the lens of individual life histories or the life cycles of species makes it easy to grasp the Hindu conception of life as drama. Every creature and plant has a separate path of sustenance and survival on the way to their final dance with Shiva.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective

“The inventions of microscopy and telescopy shattered the boundaries of ordinary human perception and fueled the scientific revolution.”
― Richard J. Borden, Ecology and Experience: Reflections from a Human Ecological Perspective