Todo Acerca de Leslie McKinney

There is a Chinese word—Wen. It meant change, change in the Tao, the fundamental rhythm, current, of the natural world. Changes so simple as the dissolution of a cloud, or so vast as the birth of a star. Over time, Wen came to be used to describe the flux in human activity, human culture. Wen, the change in nature, came to be Wen, the current of human activity; the same Wen. The Chinese mind saw human culture to be of Nature itself, as it saw humans to be of nature. Human activity, movement, immigration is not political. It is not religious. It is fundamental, fundamental to  the natural system which we call our world. Animals migrate for countless reasons, adapt to their newfound environments, their newfound situations, and change. It is quite natural—it is so simply natural! An animal—a group of animals—has no food, there is an unbearable predator, something is not right, and the animal leaves, goes somewhere else, for food, for safety, for a better life. It adapts, and over time we realize there is a new animal, the same, but different. It has adapted, so much so that it has change—developed, cultivated and sustained a new set of features, unique to itself and the situations it has found itself in. This is the process of nature, of change. 

This is how the world we have come to love has come to be so diverse, so beautiful. If one but breathes, takes a step back, and looks at humanity, at civilized culture, as nothing more than a developed nook of the animal kingdom, one must see the similarity, the self-sameness. Culture sparks, crackles, is sustained, moves, and changes. Strengthens, weakens, changes. Culture adapts. Culture, the cornerstone to the human identity, develops with the movement of humanity, strengthens with it. The very culture you breathe, in the most stygian depths of your subconscious, could not have been if it was not for immigration.

Migration is fundamental to human nature, for humans are of nature. Culture, what we define ourself by, is the child of movement, of change.

Now, today there are a lot of ideas about migration. But I hope that I can remember this: the deer had no passports.