A Stroll through Overpopulated Spring Valley

Predaceous Diving Beetles, more commonly reffered to as “water tigers” are a really interesting kind of species. They live in and on ponds and feed off of smaller pond creatures and decaying animal matter. Great, you may think, an insect that has the value of an aggressive mushroom. But you are mistaken. These Diving Beetles need oxygen in order to survive but need to dive underwater to get their source of nutrition and to satisfy both needs, these diving beetles swim to the surface, use their legs and micro-leg hairs to grab a bubble of oxygen and then prey on food, using their bubble as their personal Scuba tank! (As a bonus to make them cooler, they feed on mosquito larvae as well).

Anyway, I was just observing these Predaceous Diving Beetles with my Dad when I started noticing a lot of people come. And I mean a LOT (10–15). They were peering over my shoulder and around my head trying to see what I was looking at. I pointed at the water and I said, “Water tigers, you see them?” and I visibly saw their expressions fall, one by one as they nodded evenly though they couldn’t have seen them from their altitude and indifferently strolled away back into their own worlds.

Suddenly, I was really angry. It is bad enough to be angry, but at the moment, I wasn’t really sure what I was angry about either. This made me more angry. So before assessing my anger with you, let me give you some background: I was observing the aforementioned Diving Beetles in the North end of the largest pond in Spring Valley Heritage Farm, a place that on a good day normally gets maximally 50 people in a 135 acre nature center preserve. Recently, Spring Valley and donors invested in a 2.5 million dollar play ground, affectionately known as “Bison Bluff”. It is a very nice playground and if you live in the Schaumburg area, I highly suggest you check it out no matter what your age. I live a five minute walk and two minute jog from Spring Valley and as a result, I go there a minimum of twice a week. I practically grew up there. So when suddenly 500 kids and their sweating parents show up milling about, I was shook… and angry.

Spring Valley was never just a nature center to me, though. It was much more. Every time I went there, I would make new memories with my parents or my friends and I would discover and learn something new. I felt that I appreciated the park for everything about nature that it taught me and in return, I cared for it. There is a faulty drain at the North end of the same pond and every so often, it gets clogged, causing the pond to overflow. I have made it my unofficial job to unclog said drain and maintain the waterlevel of the pond. Spring Valley had become more than just a nature preserve, it was my nature preserve.

So I guess that it was only natural to feel some sort of anger when a ton of screaming, wailing children came into my park. I thought about it and I realized how shallow this was. Was I really angry because Spring Valley had made a decision to advance its popularity but left me, a long-time lover of nature in the dark? Was I mad at how technologically-playground advanced Spring Valley was becoming? I asked my Dad how he felt and he felt completely fine about it. So based on these observations, I drew a few conclusions:

1. First of all, I think that age must play a big role in this somehow. I probably felt more territorial because my childhood commitment to Spring Valley has made a big impact in my life and the countless other toddlers stomping around the park as if it were theirs made me feel threatened in my domain. In short, I felt threatened by smol children who were challenging my so-called domain. Perhaps this is the stem of human nature and as we mature and age, we become “wiser” growing farther from our true nature.
2. This could be an incredibly useful marketing tactic! T-Mobile’s strategy of giving their long time customers unexpected perks and surprise unlimited data has definitely given them a lot of customer loyalty and satisfaction. I think that the same thing applies to more or less everything. For example, a similar thing happened between the US and Japan in the 1970’s. US’s sudden relationship with China regardless of the Korean War and Japan’s disregarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the sake of a relationship with the US threw Japan into a whirlwind and pulled Japan and US apart. The principle is very simple, the more you commit to something, the more it commits to you and there you have it: a positive feedback cycle.
3. Going off of this, I asked myself whether I would be happier if these children were here for something other than Bison Bluff. Would I be happier if these kids were here appreciating diving beetles instead of running around? I wonder how I would look upon Spring Valley if I didn’t live as close and didn’t feel as responsible for the park. This also made me reflect upon my own actions in other parks as well. This lead me to believe that collaboration is the highest state of coexistence. The concept that I would help other parks as others helped mine would lead to a better world and a better society. The key concept? Do what you can to help. Always.
4. Finally, I guess I will end the anger here, but I wonder if these people will stay. Even though I was (and still am… a little…) angry, I can’t help but admit that there was still a bit of pride left that these people were coming to a park that I helped maintain. When they walked by the pond, they saw the water level that I disloged. When they walked past the bushes, they saw the pureness of the bushes that I picked trash out of. Was this some kind of victory in the least? In the end, nature doesn’t belong to everyone and it is important to share what you can with the world. Perhaps this is the only way to achieve a somewhat (e)utopian collaborative state.

With that, I conclude my way-too-long random thought. Feel free to comment or DM me with any feelings you may have of territorial anger that you just can’t pinpoint. Till then :)