Jr.High Sex Ed.

Is coming to age at the end of nature like Jr.High sex education? Ya know, with the awkward moments of half truths about changes going on within us and outside of us, getting a grade and credits for being there? (Much like folks claiming to have marched on Washington back in the 1960's?). What does it mean to come of age in the end of nature? Is this a millennial moment? What does it mean to be good for Nature? Loss of innocence?

As adrienne maree brown (emphasis on her non-capitalizing initials, much like bell hooks) says, there are conversations going on only for the people in the room, but unlike sex ed., this conversation is seemingly for all if the room is Earth. The stories written about in the book Coming of Age at the End of Nature are all about climate change, human's 'development', and the natural environment in which these folks grew up in. Their idea of nature seems to be changing, or they're challenging this concept, both, somewhere in between, and all across the spectrum.

"What even is nature?"
Often said jokingly from the ENST discourse on deconstructing loaded key terms.





I imagine nature as the water streaming out of our faucets (they don't materialize upon command, although that would be awesome), the tree's climbed upon towering over moonstone beach, the hedges guarding thy holy high founders hall, or the beer homebody drinks.
I don't believe this end of nature, or coming to age, is so black and white. What really is, aside from divide and conquer tactics from Empire. I don't, and some what do, feel a loss of innocence from this coming of age.

I see innocence as the veil of a mushroom dissolving as puhpowee (Kimmerer)--the fleshy fungi sprouting from composting organic matter, shucking their baby skin away as they grow, compost, and turn into compost. This viel for privileged folks is "being sheltered from [Empire's] most extreme forms of violence and degradation, and to be enrolled in a stultifying form of life that re-creates this violence" (Montgomery and bergman 51-52). Releasing this viel, as I can only speak for myself, eyesight hones in on what bears privileges, revealing the complex relationships constituting this 'innocence'. Losing innocence is comparable to some groups coming to age, because we gain something, while also losing something--an exchange of energy, knowledge, wisdom.

The end of nature is similar to loss
because the ideology of nature can be broken down asking, whose nature is coming to an end? Is it the nostalgic nature Edward Abbey writes of?; where it's unattainable for all those who don’t have the physical ability, financial means, or be in the “right place at the right time” before tourism (while violent forced relocation of indigenous peoples are ongoing)? Much like Lauren McCrady, I believe in "an understanding and an ethic of nature that both values preservation for future generations, while also acknowledging the inevitability of change" (109 End of Nature). I hear bell hooks echo in my mind about objects, people whose identity and reality are defined for them by subjects, people with power defining others realities and identities. I believe by leaving the European defined outdated version of nature we are able to redefine this idea which affects our physical reality, our identity, place, relations, and purpose.




This isn’t to say climate change isn’t happening, and that environments aren’t changing, but if we keep comparing something static, the idea of pure pristine nature, to a fluid actuality of change, then we’re always in the wrong. 

Moving past this will keep us growing, fighting, and changing.




What each of us 'millennials' experience differs, not from the blurry generational age definition, but because of our positionalities--background, upbringing, ethnicity, religion, class, geographic location--. This conversation on climate change, power dynamics shifting, and the future belongs to all of us because this metaphorical room is the Earth. This conversation seems like it won't be as shitty as the boy sees bus and gets boner; sex = pregnancy + STD's; watch a baby get born; look at packets of paper that will be tossed into the garbage right after class kind of conversation from Jr.High sex ed....although there is still the figuring this out. Much like an angsty teen groping in the dark trying to figure themselves out in the mi(d)st of change, without any real direction. We’re bumping into shit, but at least we’re learning and working towards a collective goal of not trying to die.