There’s a quote, “Fight for what you love, not against what you hate.” The implication is that we should try to focus on positive things, that by drawing attention to the good we automatically place the bad in the shadows.

This is what I’ve tried to do on my blog. I don’t talk about politics or “the issues;” there are already plenty of people having those conversations much more eloquently than I could.

I talk about living a beautiful life in the midst of an ugly world. I do think American culture is increasingly ugly. Our political discourse, our Twitter feeds, even our popular music is increasingly vulgar. What I can offer is something pretty- a picture of a storm cloud rolling in toward the beach, a reflection on what it means to work closely with animals, or a sighting of an interesting happening in nature.

If we get too mired down in news feeds and political arguments, our souls become sick. There is a price to pay for the never ending mental stimulation of scrolling through six different websites all day, every day. We need to be reminded to put down the screen, go outside, and breathe the air while it’s still clean enough to breathe.