So much of what we do in our lives – our individual lives and community life – is aimed at solving problems. This is a good thing. As I have served on many community groups, boards and committees, I often see, however, that we easily focus on the problem and forget the effects on the whole system around the problem.

Wendell Berry talks about this in one of his books, and calls it “Solving for the Pattern.” He talks about our tendency as humans to focus ourselves narrowly, and forget to check out the connections and causes and effects – the pattern – of the larger community or system.

I can fully understand this tendency of ours, especially as our world becomes ever more complex and access to information becomes immense. We almost have to narrow things down in our mind to deal with just one thing at a time or we will be overwhelmed!

But if we work at “Solving for the Pattern,” we seek to find solutions that don’t just fix the problem. We fix the problem as we also work harmoniously with the entire system that contains it, and think about the well-being of all parts of the system.

For instance, if we need places for walking safely then the simple solution is to start building more trails and put in more sidewalks! Then again, if we look at the whole pattern, we will take into account the effects of more impervious surfaces, the intrusion of human activity into natural areas, the cost of maintenance of trails or the plantings along the sidewalks and more.

Much deliberation is put into many of the decisions made here at Stillwaters Environmental Education Center and in Kingston about such decisions. I would hope that people would know that and respect the decisions made. One often ignored is the decision to make certain trails off-limits to dogs, with or without their humans, and with or without their leashes. But some humans don’t seem to realize those decisions were made with the whole pattern in mind, for the good of the whole, and for very good reasons.

So now we have another dilemma as wildlife sanctuary areas are intruded upon by some humans with dogs, which greatly disrupts the pattern of the wildlife habitat. The decisions about wildlife sanctuary areas were made with the idea that there would be many places for dogs to accompany their humans, and at least a few places where the wildlife would not be disturbed by dogs. This seemed like a good balance that met the needs of the whole system.

Now the dilemma is how to make the humans with their dogs understand why they need to follow the posted rules. Unfortunately, in our society these days, just having a rule does not seem to impress everyone.

Do we post humongous signs that are so big they are ugly and detract from the beauty we are trying to preserve and enjoy? Or do we tell the wildlife, “tough luck – dogs are more important than you are?” This is a tough one, but like all the problems and solutions before our community, one we’ll surely deliberate.

“Good solutions,” according to Wendell Berry, “solve more than one problem while not creating new ones; they’re of an appropriate and manageable scale; they’re affordable, resilient, healthful, and beautiful; they’re good in all respects.”

Naomi Maasberg is administrative director of Stillwaters Environmental Education Center in Kingston. A Sustainability Discussion Class meets at Stillwaters with a new group forming in May. For more information, contact Joleen Palmer at (360) 297-2876 or Joleen@Stillwatersenvironmentalcenter.org.