Questions

I decided to postpone my departure to Vegas so that I could get an actual nights sleep. I will be leaving the house here very shortly and arriving around 5pm. That probable means I will leave tomorrow later in the day and play the detour by ear. I wish I had more time. There is a book I have been reading through the past few days called The Little-Known Southwest, and I really want to see it all. It is such a different kind of world. I have driven through Southern Utah once but never with a thoughtful eye. . . so I guess if nothing else this drive and the stops I make will be a start. I can't do everything now. 

I was doing research on the Anasazi dwellings and ruins that are scattered throughout the four corners area and realized that how those shelters function as a dwelling seemed rather simple. There is such a clear connection between the culture of the Anasazi with the fourfold, if you will, and, at least as it appears to me, a harmony between intervention and nature. I think that is something we have lost the care for as our society has 'developed'. It seems easy to understand how dwellings function off the grid, how people who leave our societal norms behind can live in connection with the four fold, hand in hand with themselves, the earth, the sky and the divinities. I can even understand how places like Park City succeed in dwelling without leaving our norms behind, but Park City is not normal. There is a mindset and priority that brings nature to a high level of importance, it is ingrained in the lifestyle here. People live here so that they can run, bike, hike, backpack through the wild and untamed mountains. The autonomy that is talked about in Camps is almost found as a way of life here. The life is just different. What I do not understand is how we succeed to dwell in an urban environment. How we find that connection when the tempo of life has been turned up exponentially, when we have paved and removed ourselves from the natural life and left ourselves only with  man made parks and recreation centers? How do we dwell and find that harmony when every moment of life is about a task? How do we create environments that allow for us to step back and take that moment? I am sure it has a lot to do with choice, but I feel like it is utterly difficult in comparison to other ways of living even in a contemporary society. Urban environments bring focus to the manmade. . . to rules and challenges we have created for ourselves - not the ones we were given. But Urban environments are the ultimate 'location'. There are spaces and things all around to bring the fourfold together. It is not merely a bridge in nature that finds its difference from the mountainside and creates a location, it is a constant collection and layering of building. It seems that according to Heidegger it would be the ULTIMATE dwelling. "We do not dwell because we have built, we built because we dwell". Is there a point where that balance is breached? Have our cities been built so carelessly that we have blocked the other aspects of the fourfold completely? Or am I just missing the point? Maybe it is not all cities but some cities? Maybe it is just my perception? And for that, leaving the cities, what about suburbia? Places and communities that have lost their identity and have become paved landscapes of Wal-Marts and trimmed bushes that are not native to the land. What of these communities we have created where you can only build a certain type of fence and can only grow a particular species of grass and must keep it green and cut to a certain length or you will be in violation of someone rules? What of these places we have created for ourselves that strips us from the very nature of freedom? Of creation? Or creativity or the natural? Our nature and life's nature? Is that why we feel like we need so much more from life? Is that why we have created so many distractions? To fulfill a void we have forgotten to listen to? Even Heidegger said that we are forced to continue to relearn what it is to dwell. . . Have we lost that ability or knowledge of such a thing as it has washed away with our languages? But maybe I am wrong, maybe our form of dwelling has changed with the development of time... maybe now we are creating what we need in order to find that harmony. But I am not convinced. Especially since the things that are most natural to us don't really change.. 

Feedback is welcomed. I suppose these are good questions to have considering the variety of lifestyles I will be driving through in these next two days. 

:: Edit:: Perhaps this is why we are so attracted to the things that remind us of a more simple life? I compare it to sailing down the eastern sea board and taking a cruise liner where you will undoubtably spend more time in the spa, arcade, restaurant, and pool than enjoying the ocean. I just don't understand it..

Cheers