I attempted to be environmentally conscious in the completion of my Naturalist

Notebook (and my visits to my chosen site). Although my primary goal in

completing the Notebook were To understand myself better, my other stated
objectives were, I believe, very environmentally-conscious. I said that I wanted to
engage/commune with Nature, To examine nature in an unusual, unfamiliar
way, To gain new perspectives, To establish my position in relation to nature/to
form a relationship with nature, and To create/learn definitions for nature. The
majority of my goals were oriented around developing my relationship with and
understanding of nature because I believed, and still believe, that with any degree
of open-mindedness, spending a lot of time in a particular area allows you to see
things about that area that you did not initially notice. Furthermore, you begin to
see yourself in relation to this place, not only as standing in a geographical location,
but also as being involved and invested in the place. When you spend a lot of time
in a place, you want to establish a sense of belonging or identity there. You have to
ask yourself, Why am I here/What am I doing here? What kind of difference is my
presence making on this place? What kind of impression is this place having on
me? I asked myself those questions almost every time I visited my site. We do not
return to a place if it is not somehow meaningful to us. While the practical reason
for me visiting my site was that I had been assigned to do so, I also had to be aware
that I had chosen this place, and subsequently had to ask myself, What draws me
to this place? Why did I think it would be interesting to observe? By questioning,
rather than uncritically accepting, the state of things - in this case, my repeated
visitation of a natural environment - you inevitably come to see both the place and
yourself differently. It doesnt have to fundamentally change you. But the practice of
writing about a place in detail, with a mind to what is environmentally ethical and
what is not, stirred my previously stagnant perceptions and beliefs. It is very rare for
me to find myself in a position where I am actively and attentively listening and
attending to my surroundings. It is very rare for anybody to do so, in this day and
age. There are so many distractions, and so much of these distractions separate us
from natural environmental influences. We like to be sheltered. In order to examine
and write about my site, however, I had to leave the comfort of being sheltered,
both literally and metaphorically.
I felt that I had a tendency to be somewhat self-centered in my observations, and in
my interpretations of those observations. But, as I wrote in one of my entries, it is
impossible to write an entirely objective account of any experience, and writing
about nature is no exception. I would often reflect on the emotions, sensations, and
memories that the place drew from me - every sight and sound was either familiar
or unfamiliar, as I could not help but compare my experience here to my previous
experiences in different times and places. In short, it was a very personal
experience, writing about this place.
I had visited this location before, but that had little to no bearing on my practice of
completing the Naturalist Notebook, as, try as I did, I was not able to remember

when or with whom I had previously visited. I know that I first came to the place last
year, and I remember that I have been with groups of friends, and that I have
visited both during the day and at night; beyond that, however, I could recall no
detail. I spent a fair amount of time in my earlier entries discussing how I was
surprised that the way I had imagined the place in my memory was strikingly
different from the reality that I encountered (or reencountered). I had idealized the
place in my mind, warping the visual and other sensory details, as well as
apparently not having a clear idea of where this site was located with respect to the
rest of the campus. I, in an attempt to be an ethical writer, corrected my mistaken
observations to the best of my abilities. I noted that the buildings I had thought I
saw upon a first observation turned out actually to be different buildings. That is
one of the most important practices in doing ethical environmental writing:
acknowledging mistakes and potential misperceptions or misinterpretations, as well
as noting possible interpretations that differ from your own. Obviously, the
observations that I record are going to be specific to me, and therefore different,
either minimally or significantly, from what another person would observe in the
exact same situation. Each individual thinks differently.
Speaking of thinking differently, I tried to be mindful of what the non-human living
beings could have been thinking or feeling, and how they might have understood
and experienced the environment differently from myself. I mentioned the tweeting
of the birds (although not in nearly as much detail as David Abram did in Discourse
of the Birds), and the swaying and swooping character of the trees. I noted the
color and shape of plants, and of the dirt, and the quality of the air and the sky. And
while, again, I feel that I was rather self-centered in my observations of these things
- always saying what they meant to me, and how they made me feel - I feel that I
gave at least some attention to what these other beings might be experiencing. I
was cautious of being presumptuous in my imaginings: I did not want to say with
false certainty what I did not know to be true. The trees and I do not speak the
same language; the brain of a bird works differently from my own; and the
perspective of plants and clouds and falling rain will never perfectly align with my
own perceptions. Nevertheless, I did my best to imagine, and reimagine, what
memories and feelings they might have held within themselves, away from my
prying eyes.
Another thing I discussed in my Naturalist Notebook was the limitations of language.
Language is not a perfectly objective representation of observable realities. Words
are imbued with so much meaning through social and cultural processes across time
and space. One of the most difficult things about being an [environmentally ethical]
writer is taking care to choose words carefully, knowing the connotations and
implications that they possess. However, this aspect of being a writer, to me
personally, also offers the greatest opportunities to develop a personal style, and it
is a wonderful chance to examine ones own ethical (or unethical) practices. Writers
have a responsibility to own their written representations, and to admit both to

others and to themselves that the way they portray things is not objective, but is in
fact influenced by personal biases (biases in this sense not meaning prejudiced, but
rather a set of perceptions and beliefs that are unique to the individual because of
their unique experience of life). Occasionally, it is frustrating to me that I am not
able to show others exactly what I am thinking and feeling, and that my words seem
to get in the way of sharing ideas, rather than helping me to do so. But grappling
with the challenges and complexities of language is actually, if practiced
consistently, one of the best ways to become an ethical writer. You come to
understand, especially when sharing your work with others and receiving feedback,
how certain words and phrases are interpreted from different viewpoints, and you
start getting a knack for saying more precisely what you want to say. Although I am
far from perfect in this regard, I have certainly developed as a writer by being a
careful examiner of my own use of language. I am very particular about my use of
certain words, because I am keen to the sometimes very subtle differences in
meaning that they hold. In the process of developing my writing style and improving
my skills, I have achieved a personal writing style that effectively expresses my
attitudes, and, most importantly, is unique to me. All writers, and all individuals,
have unique perceptions, and in many writing contexts, it is better to let this
personal style be manifest than to try and hide it. One of the most useful things that
I have learned this semester is that our interpretations often reveal more about
ourselves than about the things we are observing.
Personally, I struggle with making my language simpler and more concise. I also
struggle with organizing my ideas. What I learned through the process of drafting
my Naturalist Notebook was that I do these things because I tend to think in very
broad terms, which is actually good in a way, because it demonstrates openmindedness. However, I was more often than not frustrated by my seeming inability
to stay on topic, and throughout my writing career I have noticed that I get very
caught up in the technicalities of language. Is this grammatically correct? I fret.
Does it really flow? Is the meaning significantly changed by switching these two
words? While on the one hand, I suppose it is admirable to pay such attention to
linguistic detail, on the other hand, it can be quite limiting. One of my shortcomings
as a still-developing writer is that I cannot write anything without worrying about
how it may sound to someone else. While keeping ones audience in mind is
undoubtedly important, the degree to which I do so somehow restricts my freedom
as a writer. I am scared to say the wrong things; I am scared to be wrong. Ironically,
there is nothing wrong with being wrong, as long as one is willing to take
responsibility for what they have written. My one greatest challenge as a writer is
that I inhibit myself. Out of fear of saying what is incorrect or what may offend, I
avoid asserting things with confidence, even my own opinions. If someone were to
tell me that they found my writing personally offensive, my greatest fear as a writer
would have come true. But I think that ethical environmental writing should be
different. To be effective, compelling, and persuasive, one must take risks. Besides,
there is value in disagreement and in controversy; in the right context, it can spark
critical and insightful conversations, which integrate multiple perspectives. (The

article The Union Makes Them Strong by Laura Paskus describes such a
phenomenon.)