Even when communing with nature we depend on technology for help — but then, so did Thoreau (梭罗) at Walden Pond (瓦尔登湖).
Walking in the same woods yesterday, I let myself wander at random, communing with nature.
I took in beautiful scenery near and far thanks to my progressive-lens eyeglasses. Occasionally I'd pull out my smartphone to take pictures on anything interesting. I recorded an inner monologue with a background of all sounds of the forest. At times, I consulted my smart watch to check on my heartbeat, mileage and calorie burn. Eventually I realized I was quite lost. Not a problem of course. Online maps came to my rescue.
But something bothered me. In what I'd intended as a nature experience, here I was using very high technology to help myself out. This insight triggered a reconsideration of everything that happened during my "nature walk," which had been technologically enhanced every step of the way. I'd been functioning as a man-machine combination: a cyborg.
What would the true naturalist Thoreau think of that? My first thought was that he'd be shocked. But later I did some research. Thoreau enjoyed what his spyglass discovered, like this eagle from his journal:
Lying on the ground with my glass, I could watch him very easily …till I almost lost him in the clouds . . . I think I have got the worth of my glass now that it has revealed to me the white-headed eagle.
Famously, Thoreau always set out equipped with a walking stick, which he used not only for support but also to take measurements of water and snow levels. His hat was also a tool, which he called his "botany-box." And he was prepared even with needles and thread, so when coming out of the woods, he was "the best dressed." Clearly, Thoreau was a bit of a cyborg himself.
Thinking more deeply, I realized we've come a long way from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who walked from necessity and relied on nature's gift. Cyborgs are us.
B . 
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D . 
