Environmental Protection

 

Sometimes, in the silence of late hours, when the world seems to thicken and become transparent, I feel a fragile need rising in me — to remember why we are here, why we continue to search for tenderness within ourselves and between one another, and why it even makes sense to protect this world that we so often do not know how to love. Then I open the diary — that quiet witness to my inner scattering — and try to catch in words that tremor which both hurts and consoles, that inner voice which at times sounds like a prayer and at other times like a confession of my own helplessness.

Lately, I think more and more about care and love — not as romantic gestures but as the quiet, everyday reflex to be attentive to the world, to the body, to the soul, to the other. I think about how the soul too needs nourishment — not from loud promises but from presence, from a gaze, from faith, from that fine inner touch that returns us to ourselves.

And perhaps because the human psyche knows so well the need for a mirror — for that Other through whom we see ourselves more clearly — I realize how important it is to know how to be gentle. Not naïvely, not blindly, but responsibly. Psychoanalysis would say that in our ability to love lie our old wounds, our attempts to embrace our own absences, to care for the invisible child within us that still waits to be heard. And spirituality would add that love is something greater than our biography — that it is a way of connecting with mystery, with God, with nature, with that rhythm of existence that never lies.

I imagine that every creature, every tree, every drop of water is like a page from a book given to us not to own, but to read and protect. And when we treat the Earth as a cluster of resources rather than a home, we lose something of our own soul. Perhaps because inner ruin always precedes outer ruin. And conversely — when we begin to heal the world, we quietly heal ourselves.

Sometimes I imagine how we might live if we stopped for a moment and asked: “What does the silence of this forest tell me? What do I see in the gaze of the animal we kill for pleasure or habit?” And if one day we gather the courage to hear these questions, we might understand that we are not the crown of creation, but its guardians.

I believe more and more that killing animals — whether for food or entertainment — leaves a mark not only on ecosystems but also within ourselves. Every act of destruction is like a small crack in our psychic structure, a refusal to acknowledge mutual dependence, fragility, the fact that life is not a given. It seems to me that cruelty toward animals is a way to avoid our own vulnerability. But how much stronger it would be to face that vulnerability, to accept it, to understand that peace within begins with peace outside.

The same is true for the Earth — for the water, the air, the soil. It is strange how often we act like guests who hastily ruin the home that welcomed them with generosity. Perhaps because the collective unconscious still carries fear of scarcity, of hunger, of chaos… and we compensate for that ancient fear through accumulation, through consumerism, through the constant need to have more and more. But the psychoanalytic truth is simple: accumulation is a symptom, an attempt to fill a void that is actually spiritual.

And if we allow ourselves to turn to spirituality — which is not dogma but breathing — we understand how important gratitude is. Not as obligation but as inner alignment. Gratitude is like light falling softly on everything we are and everything we did not receive. Sometimes I catch myself being grateful even for refusals, for misalignments, for empty spaces — because in them grows a peculiar freedom that teaches trust. I feel that God sometimes answers with silence, and this silence is also a blessing — a space in which we grow, in which we soften, in which we learn love without conditions.

I notice that when I trust this larger movement, I feel an inner peace — that quiet, delicate peace that does not shout, does not insist, does not fight. It is like a deep lake where the sky reflects itself without fear. This peace is strangely tied to gratitude; as if one nourishes the other, as if when we surrender to the acknowledgment of life’s gifts — even the difficult ones — the missing silence settles inside us.

In these reflections I begin to understand that the greatest answer to consumerism is not moral rebuke but creation. Creativity — even the smallest kind — is an inner act of resistance against destruction. When we make something with our hands, our mind, our soul — be it bread, a garden, a line of writing, a home, a gesture of kindness — we do more than shape matter; we rehabilitate the very idea of meaning. And then the inner void that seeks to be filled with things begins to fade.

I think more and more that creation is an act of healing — for us and for the world. While consumption destroys, creation heals. When we open a space for creativity, there appears that quiet joy which cannot be purchased: the joy of belonging, of reciprocity, of a stable connection with ourselves and others.

And when people begin to take responsibility, not from guilt but from maturity, the world truly changes. Responsibility is the other side of love — the moment when we stop feeling separate from the Earth, from the community, from the future. It is our way of saying: “I am part of this. And I care.”

Sometimes, while writing here, I feel these thoughts gathering like threads — psychic, spiritual, ecological — weaving into something that resembles a quiet inner vow. A vow to live not by inertia, but with attention. To not destroy when I can create. To not remain silent when I can protect. To not hurry when I can listen.

And perhaps that is the meaning of everything — to listen. To ourselves. To nature. To God. To others. To hear that first faint whisper of conscience, of love, of fear, of hope. To hear how the world speaks to us not with commands, but with images: the scent of fresh soil, the trembling of a leaf, the gaze of an unfamiliar animal that somehow recognizes us. Or the silence of a forest into which we entered as outsiders and from which we emerge as children.

In these pages, in this evening softness, it seems to me that every small gesture matters. That the world is healed by our attention. That beauty is born where someone dares not to be indifferent. And I believe — perhaps naïvely, but sincerely — that if more people begin to feel this responsibility, quiet, nonviolent, inward — the world truly could become more beautiful.

Not through loud slogans. But through small, almost invisible actions. Through choices we make alone with ourselves, in the quiet rooms of conscience.

And when I close the diary, I am left with the feeling that something in me is a little fuller, a little lighter. That words do not merely narrate — they heal, just as the earth heals when we give it air, water, rest.

Perhaps this is the most meaningful path: to be co-creators of the world, not its destroyers. To choose life, even when it is difficult. To protect beauty, even when it is fragile. To give thanks, even when we do not understand. And to believe that every bit of our attention — every fragment of our tenderness — is a way to bring the world back to itself.