A Crying Call

 

Sometimes, I find myself envying ancient humans - not the relatively recent ones, but those who lived long before history was written down, before civilizations rose, before kingdoms were built, before stories like Adam and Eve were ever spoken into existence. Not because their lives revolved merely around eating, sleeping, and surviving until the next meal, but because they seemed so deeply intertwined with nature. I cannot help but envy what they possessed and we seem to have lost.

They did not wake up to alarm clocks. They did not rush through morning routines while mentally calculating deadlines. They did not worry about tuition fees, electricity bills, taxes, fuel prices, savings accounts, insurance plans, or monthly expenses. They did not spend days preparing resumes, attending interviews, building careers, or competing with strangers in endless races they never consciously chose to enter. No crowded metros. No traffic signals. No leather bags hanging from tired shoulders. No anxious glances at watches while trying to reach somewhere before the clock struck nine. There were no weekends to look forward to because life itself was not divided into weekdays and weekends. There were no planned vacations because there was no need to escape from a life they had built.

I often wish I could live just a single day as they did.

A day without worrying about gaining weight. A day without wondering whether a particular food might cause acne. A day where food is simply food. Hunger is simply hunger. Eating is simply eating.

No concrete structures rising towards the sky. No glass towers reflecting sunlight. No roads cutting through landscapes. Only forests stretching endlessly beyond sight. Trees older than memory. Rivers flowing wherever they wished. Mountains standing untouched. The sky visible in its entirety.

No cameras trying to capture the sky, clouds, or birds. Only eyes admiring them as they are. The sky belonged to no one. Clouds drifted freely without becoming photographs. Birds crossed horizons without becoming social media posts.

They were simply looked. They were admired. They were remembered. And perhaps that was enough.

I often think about how different silence must have felt back then. Today, silence is rare. There is always a notification, an engine, a screen, a conversation, a piece of music, a machine humming somewhere in the background. But a silence interrupted only by the sounds of nature? Perhaps those sounds were the silence. A silence that is not empty but alive. A silence that speaks.

No language to explain oneself to anyone, but simply existing within one's own presence.

No bikes, cars, or public transport. Just walking barefoot over thorns, dry twigs, fallen flowers, and scattered leaves.

Breathing not the dust and fumes of modern life or the recycled chill of air conditioners, but the scent of crisp leaves drying even more beneath summer heat, fragrance of wild flowers, damp earth, and creatures unknown to us today.

Hearing nothing but the crackle of dry leaves beneath each step, the rush of water colliding with moss-covered rocks, the distant calls of unseen animals, and the whisper of the wind through the trees.

To feel the full intensity of the sun's heat without seeking shelter. To be drenched by rain without raincoats or umbrellas, without even knowing there was a way to avoid getting wet. Simply accepting it as part of being alive.

Perhaps there was a certain freedom in that. To stand beneath the sky and accept whatever it offered. Sun. Rain. Wind. Cold. Heat. Darkness. Light. Not as inconveniences, but as parts of life. The closeness. The intimacy with the earth. The feeling of belonging to nature rather than merely visiting it.

Sometimes, I wonder what it must have felt like to exist in a world untouched by modern inventions, where life was harsher, perhaps, but where every breath, every sound, and every moment belonged entirely to nature. Perhaps that is what I envy most - not their lives, but their connection to the world around them. A connection so deep that they were not separate from nature. They were nature.