Too lethargic to move, I write in the spot where I first plopped down. We have been instructed to write about "the big picture." At first, I find it hard to come up with an idea for this here at Waller Creek (considering it is only the second time I have been down here). Upon looking around, I see that the trees have more leaves on them, and I hear the birds singing this time around. Other than those, and a few other subtle differences, not much has changed here at Waller Creek in the past few weeks. At least, that is how it may appear at first. However, just the fact that I was last here in winter, and I am now here in the spring, makes all the difference in the world - not only in the scenery, but in myself as well. I may not be able to talk about all the changes that have occurred in the world since I last visited the creek. I know, however, that with the passing of time something, unknown to me at this moment, has happened that will influence my life. I am reminded that over the Spring Break, I was reading a book called Into the Wild, by John Krakauer. It was about a young man, named Chris McCandless, who went off into the Alaska backcountry to see if he could survive on his own. He ended up starving to death. It was an awful and true story that occurred in 1992. As I was reading it, I was wondering what I was doing with myself at the time this event occurred, more specifically, the day he died. In 1992, I was in middle school and far more concerned with The Violent Femmes than with some guy in Alaska. In fact, I never heard anything about him at that time. Who would have guessed that eight years later, this young man's story would provide hours of reading entertainment as I sat in the car for fifteen hours, driving towards my Spring Break destination. Moreover, that his story would provide me writing material as I sat with my English class at Waller Creek, a week after that. I wonder how many other people's lives (besides those discussed in the book) this young man's expedition would play a part in. For one, the author of the book; all those who read the book (including myself); all those who heard the book talked about (including anyone who reads this essay); and the list goes on and on. I wonder what is happening at this very moment (that I may not be aware of while I am at the creek) that is going to affect my life - even eight years from now. Most likely, something is happening, and being aware of this gives me an overwhelming sense of unity with everything around me (even with the things I cannot see, and know nothing of). I know that we are all connected, simply because we are existing (or did exist) on the planet. In his essay, Watts writes of,"The balance of nature, the 'harmony of contained conflicts,' in which man thrives is a network of mutually interdependent organisms of the most astounding subtlety and complexity." We are all linked together, more than any of us can phathom When I was little, I once wondered aloud to my older brother, what would happen if I were to go back in time, even if just for a minute. My brother told me that I would change all of history. I did not understand how this could be so, especially if nobody saw me. He went on with some complicated explanation about how my going back in time could do something as seemingly insignificant as change the direction that an ant on the ground was moving in, therefore altering history forever. His explanation was longer, of course, and in his story changing the insects direction somehow led to nuclear war, and I then dissapeared. Even if he had not taken that so far, though, I still would have understood that I could not do something like that without altering history in some way. The reason for this being, the link that encompasses all things. As Watts puts it, "To say that certain events are causally connected is only a clumsy way of saying that they are features of the same event..." It is interesting to think how something that is happening in your life right now (big or small) could be different, if just one little circumstance (somewhere along the way) had not occurred, or had occurred differently. Our lives are influenced everyday by the things around us, to not give unity the attention it deserves is to not understand life.