Natural Causes

Reality isn’t an abstraction in the wild.

A backcountry stream. Photograph by Walt McLaughlin.

For thousands of years philosophers have speculated about what is real, as if reason could do what the five senses cannot. The discussion almost always goes astray, sinking deep into the quagmire of semantics until it all seems like so much frivolous wordplay. But life itself takes center stage in any heartfelt consideration of the matter. And death, of course, is right there with it.