Natural Wisdom

To deal with tragedy and grief, humans have a coping mechanism which we know as the grieving process. There are many steps to this process and, as far as we know, human beings are the only creatures on the earth to have a such a thing. In nature, death is common and the animals know that life is fleeting. When an animal dies, there is no time for the others to mourn them, life is hard and they must keep living. Life and death are natural cycles but human society has gone so far from nature that we have socially conditioned ourselves to be disconnected from it and all its attributes. In times of trouble or of grief, we try to comfort ourselves and one of the ways we can do that is to connect with our own “natural wisdom.� Natural wisdom is something which we are all born with, but throughout life, as we are conditioned in society, we lose our ability to get in touch with it. In William Wordsworth’s “The Ruined Cottage� the old pedlar Armytage tries to reconnect with nature to help ease his grief at the death of a friend. Armytage works to attain natural wisdom, so that he can be have solace and come to the realization that though Margaret is dead, she is finally at peace.
Searching for peace of his own, Armytage once

From natural wisdom turn our hearts away,

To natural comfort shut our eyes and ears,

Armytage reflects here on the fact that only humans turn away from the natural cycles of life and death and that we do not listen to the natural wisdom which all creatures have. He says that we are weak because we do not react to death as other animals do, but I am not sure I agree. It is human nature to mourn the death of loved ones. It is not our “natural wisdom” that creates our grief, but the nature that has come from our lives in society. We do not live like the other animals in the world, and our different ways of living have obviously affected our customs. It is the custom of an animal not to grieve, but the custom of humans is to mourn what we have loved. Although it would be easier if we could all go throughout life without those feelings of tragic loss, it is in the loss that we are able to find life so much sweeter. Perhaps for humans life is more precious than it is for the other animals, because we have the capability to mourn and we know that life is short and should be cherished, so through that humans are able to improve their lives.

Getting in touch with the “natural wisdom” inside of him, Armytage was able to see that at some point, the living must stop grieving and go on living. When the old man tells the narrator “enough to sorrow have you given,” he tells of how grief is appropriate and right, but after grieving, there is still life to live and that it should be lived and lived well. With nature’s help, he was able to successfully make it through the grieving process, finally reaching a point where he was abl