Why doesn't the park outside my window count as nature?

A man came to me and said, 'Hodja, I long for real nature. Not this dirty canal by my house — I mean forests, mountains, something true.' I walked him to the canal. A heron stood in the reeds. Fish broke the surface. He watched a while, then sighed, 'Yes, but this isn't really nature. This is just the town's water.' I asked him: does the heron know it is supposed to be somewhere else? You have decided nature lives far away, behind a fee, past a highway, inside a postcard. So the tree on your street, the park you pass twice a day, the rooftop garden your neighbor waters — none of it counts. You built a wall between yourself and the very things that could help you, out of a rule you never actually agreed to. This isn't really about geography. It's about permission. You're waiting for a purer version of something already standing outside your door — growing, breathing, doing exactly what nature does.