Monomad: Experiencing my first earthquake, thoughts on nature

The other day, just shortly after it hit noon, I felt the first earthquake I had ever experienced. Now, the term of earthquake sounds far more serious than what I experienced, I must admit. While lazing around in bed, I felt the bed begin to, in a rather gracefully manner, shake. I would consider these to be more mere tremors than anything of significance, it appears no real damage was done to anything, for the actual earthquake took place near the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan. In the most I instantly knew what was happening, and in a bit of disbelief, I looked on my phone to a group chat of the area I discovered on Telegram. It was met with equal questions: did anyone else just feel that? I remembered being a child, the days in which we would venture into the massive city of London while living on its outskirts. The Natural Science and History Museum in London would be home to a small earthquake simulator that displayed a grocery store interior. It held CCTV footage in the corner that supposedly showcased a recording of a similar environment under an earthquake. You'd stand on the platform, to which the start of an earthquake would be felt. It begins to increase in its intensity, but not to any major degree that you'd lose your balance.

I was met with an impressed feeling as the bed began to shake. Instantly going back to those memories and realising how accurate that simulator actually was. It felt no different. My apartment is a few floors high up from the ground, yet I felt that shaking, the movement of the ground beneath, like an odd movement in which the direction was undecided, one side to the other within mere fractions of seconds.

This is quite an old building, built in the Soviet Union and having seen better days. The building's exterior and interior are a bit rundown, paint peeling from the walls, old Russian text outside on its side. The windows now shattered on the stairway, exposing the stairway to the outdoor world. The stairway itself is a bit shit, with pieces of the stairway now missing. This is a building that definitely needs a bit of care, and especially given the identical one next to it looked almost brand new from the inside. It was impressed that this building hadn't fallen into dust, that it held up just fine and with no sudden cracks of dangers present. I partially expected something to go wrong, the idea that maybe the water pipes would've been damaged somehow, or the electricity would go out. Nothing did come from it, and it was met with pretty much no drama whatsoever. Oddly the world just went on in its regular fashion, nobody outside really reacted to it. You would not have known what had happened if it wasn't for the Internet. It was easy enough to have not noticed the tremors, or to have just assumed it was something else. In a way, this experience had me wanting to experience more, though I'm aware at how catastrophic these things can be, with the sheer strength they old.

It seems much of these events take place near the border, I assume that's where the plates are that cause the friction in which the earthquakes are produced. The border region of two neighbouring nations where the mountains are just the dominant thing in the landscapes. Nothing more. Perhaps the odd village, but far too rocky and tall for larger aspects of civilisation.

I find moments like this quite thrilling, perhaps a large amount of ignorance within me as the excitement of experiencing nature often outpaces the realisation of how dangerous it can be. I find that when nature really displays its true force to me, I find that I end up humbled in a way, excited by its strength and realising how small I actually am. That realisation of insignificance in the face of nature, its power and abilities. I think too many of us are sheltered in locations in which we don't quite experience its true strength, and the result is we often underestimate or even lose touch with the natural world. When was the last time you saw a clear sky at night? Saw the stars with no light pollution above? Capable of witnessing the normal moments of meteors shooting across the sky in great speeds? Such normal parts of our natural world are now hidden from us, and it's no surprise how crazy we often feel in this society that rejects our very foundations as living beings. While I'm aware of how dangerous certain natural events can be, there's something about them that really make me feel alive, aware of the self and present, whereas other times it may be easy to fall into that forgetful stance of my own natural roots. Maybe I am not making any sense to some here, but I guess to me it makes a ton of sense. A logical reasoning, even.

I haven't experienced a whole lot of strong natural events. I remember roaming through the mountains of Armenia on my way to Georgia, seeing the river villages and the destruction floods had caused a few weeks prior. I had seen them mentioned on the news, but to see the reality, all the power those villages had, it's tragic. But it shows us how little control we really have over things. How as much as we'd like to think, most of what we believe holds no weight to it whatsoever.

I sit on the balcony and watch as the wind sways the tall pine tree directly outside of my apartment. I think of the upcoming rain and cold weather that come in the winter months, and I'm really excited for it. Again looking back at my first time in Georgia, in the mountains near the border and feeling the intensity of -15 Celsius even in the daytime. Things I had never experienced before, but found great joy in. Those experiences that give hardship and make you adapt to the environment that lead to new understandings about the self. It's a lot of fun in the process. To see how strong you really are, or how well you adapt to varying environments. I think I have been doing quite well so far. After all, I'm still here, still not back in England almost a year since I left it with an assumed two week visit to Istanbul. Now typing this from Tbilisi. Who knows if this will even be a destination I remain in, perhaps another place calls me much sooner than I think.