The sun beat down on us, hot and sticky, but my father and I hiked on. The Hartland Ice Age Trail was full of mosquitoes and other bugs due to the rain that fell the previous day. This turned us into walking blood bags. But we hiked on. We were there for one thing, and one thing only: to get some footage of the woods for a webseries. But even with all the annoying insects and the horrific heat, we couldn’t help ourselves but stay a little longer to enjoy the peace of pure nature.

The plants were a bright green, like how a child would imagine a forest. It was nearly silent, save for sing-song chirps of the birds and the rustle of the leaves and bushes from animals scurrying through their afternoon routine. In this moment I truly appreciate what nature is: a system of plants and animals all working together to form a perfect living environment.

As I breathed it in and let the relaxation go through me, it felt as if I could stay there for hours. These are the resources that help our world function like the complicated machine it is and you must experience it to truly appreciate it.

If these resources weren’t conserved, we would not be able to experience the nirvana that occurred that day. We wouldn’t have been able to walk along the rocks that intruded upon the grassy hill where we set up our camera. We also wouldn’t have gotten bug bites lining our skin like the spots on a cheetah or the aching muscles from the hour of hiking. But the footage was perfect to upload to YouTube. And what we saw with our own wonder-filled eyes was even more precious of a memory. It was all worth it.