It is Autumn in the middle of the Rocky mountains in a wooded area somewhere in your isolated cabin away from everyone as the tea kettle steam escapes with a piercing noise and you pour yourself a warm cup and look out the window at the natural landscape of falling orange leaves and cloudy skies, the walls and fireplace trapping the heat inside from escaping and disappearing into the cold and the warm glow from the cup blankets your face as you take a sip. A chill stream of water flows besides your home as three raccoons make a treacherous journey across. They walk shakily across a flooded rock before fully plunging in, their heads barely above the surface as the land falls beneath them. They paddle and paddle with a quickness and flurry, almost being swept away by the current, but they do not look worried, they are determined, instinctual. They are successful. You look at them in memory. You walk to a chair on the other side of the room and stare out a different window, the land a short distance away banking to the right between two small mountains covered in rock and tree. The valley is old and the sound of wind rushes through it, of hollow, aged screams escaping from below the earth, begging for acknowledgement. You want peace, but the guilt of potential ignorance is overwhelming. Is this progress or stagnation?