The Ecotone

Wow, Hank Green. Just wow. 

"In ecology, there's a word for the place where the land is neither marsh nor scrub, rock nor ocean, forest nor plain. It's the ecotone, and I know I have to explain because my word processor's spell-checker doesn't even know it's a word. Ecotone: a transitional zone between two communities containing the characteristic species of each. It can be a fine line — behind me there is forest, in front of me grassland. Or it can be gradual — a forest reaching into wetter land, until the last tree is surrounded only by reeds and pitcher plants...

The internet was my place, but it’s not a place. It's beyond the ecotone. I was still a natural being, but in a purely cultural place...

Nothing on the internet is natural. I grew up in a place that isn’t a place. I was formed by completely unnatural surroundings where my physical body was often a mere nuisance and experiences were limited entirely to the visual..."


https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6410&context=etd


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