Dominion Never Built Anything Beautiful

Growing up, I was taught dominion was the point. Over the earth. The animals. Over people. That idea is rotten.

Hubert Reeves said it best: “Man worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that the Nature he’s destroying is the God he’s worshiping.”

We are wired for connection. To each other. To the living world around us.

Dominion short-circuits all of it. Every system built on power over something extracts until there’s nothing left. Then calls it progress.

Dominion never built anything beautiful. Connection did.

I hike and mountain bike the same trails over and over. And they are never the same twice. Nature doesn’t wait for me. It doesn’t need me. It just goes on: wild, indifferent, and breathtaking.

It was never mine to dominate. But every time I’m out there, humbled by something so much bigger than me, I think that’s exactly the point.