Why does anyone believe what they believe?

I've always considered myself a "nature geek". Growing up, my father was very restrictive in what tv I was allowed to watch, and having only 6 or so channels, my preference became the old school nature documentaries on PBS. Wild America, Nature, or any kid-version thereof. I new the lifecycle and habits of the pacific octopus by fourth grade, and got to debate with a teacher when they read a story in class! Still to this day I find myself preferring channels like Discovery, Animal Planet, and Science over mainstream television. And since it seems more and more people have begun watching the same lately, I can say I was a nature geek before it was cool.

I was also forced to play outside a lot. Well, not forced, but had my parents not been attentive in making sure I spent more time outside than in, I probably would have grown up differently. I also lived in the boonies of Auburn, so there wasn't much interaction I might have had in a city environment. I was the last stop on the bus route and still had to walk a good distance home. Even in highschool, since we claimed to live in one school district but really didn't, I had to trek home quite a bit on foot. It gave me more of an appreciation for nature than taking 30 min to drive through it.

I've also been to 48 of the 50 states. My parents were leather crafters up until i was 11, and I've been to nearly every state fair. I guess getting out of your home state can give you an appreciation for how big the world is. In high school I went to Costa Rica for 9 days, most of which were spent in the cloud forests. Amazing country, and it gave me a chance to feel and experience what I had watched on tv for so many years. My mom even sold her car so I could go, which made it all the more important to me.

And since we weren't much of a pet family, I had to make do with what I could find or catch. I spent all four years of high school raising generations of praying mantises as pets, from tiny larva to full adult. I grew a venus flytraps, and would cross polinate their three-foot tall flowers with a paintbrush. I've had pet garter snakes, turtles, jumping spiders, all the weird and creepy. I think I can understand better than most that life does come in all forms, and I get just as emotionally attached to seeing a mother spider and her nest of eggs hanging in the corner of my garage as someone does walking by the pet store and seeing all the puppies. Except that I'll go out of my way to catch some sort of insect to feed her, whereas pet store goers aren't usually allowed to feed the animals.

After I turned 11 my mom went back to being a veterinarian, further emphasis being put into my head that life with animals was so important. I heard all sorts of stories at the dinner table about people either being cruel or kind to their pets.

All this past gives me my great appreciation for life and the environment today. I Tivo nature programs and science channel documentaries when most others are watching American Idol. I want to visit the forests and savannah of Africa, the unexplored depths of New Zealand, and the Barrier Reefs of Australia. Human history interests me little compared to the millions of years of natural history this planet has to offer, and that keeps me in the belief that protecting the future of that history is vastly more important than we'll ever understand as a species.