Good evening,  

I haven't written in a while and much has happened since then, moves, relationships come and gone, successes and failures, mostly good health, but also some difficult times.

This is a hard time, not only because I am living alone and it's winter, during an epidemic.  I am facing some difficult realities about the way people relate to one another and to the world.  I would like to see more love and care in the world, and in my little corner as well.

One of my pet peeves right now is the new neighbours who are building a house.  I didn't used to have neighbours there.  My feeling is a loss of what used to be "nature", quiet, pristine, wild land.

Now there is a house, built from concrete and wood, a modern affair, which in my view is ugly and destructive of the environment.

I realize this is sounding like a rant and it is.  I am not so much against people, who want to live in a beautiful place, close to nature.   I am opposed to people destroying the beauty of the land, by building and developing it in a bad way.

First I have to clarify what I think is a "bad way"; and second, contemplate if there can exist a "good way", in which people can live harmoniously with the beauty of the natural world.

Everything I say is subjective, but some of you may agree or think along similar lines.

To me the "bad way" is a modern city with it's outstretching suburbs, built for cars in mind, and everyone owning their own house with a little back yard, the illusion of a private piece of "nature".

There is no more nature after we start building. the first job is to destroy it, normally in the most polluting, energy-expanding way.  This insane way of developing just spreads and is copied over and over, like a virus, there is little imagination or attempts to integrate nature with these monstrosities.  I would not want to live in a traditionally built house, much less in a suburb neighbourhood, that is my idea of hell, but I know there are even worst places people live in.

Now for the Positive thinking part - the "good way" of conceiving and building human habitation.

Is there an alternative, a way in which people live in aesthetically pleasing shelters and spaces, while being surrounded by pristine, undisturbed wilderness.   

I think it's possible...