Geographers call difference in elevations at a location relief. Places that have great differences in elevation, like the Grand Canyon, are said to have high relief. Places with little differences in elevation, like Delaware, have low relief. The average elevation of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim is about 8,000 feet above sea level. In the canyon, the Colorado River flows in a channel that is a little over 2,000 feet above sea level. So, the area’s relief is about one mile. In contrast, the average elevation in Delaware is 60 feet above sea level, and at the ocean Delaware’s elevation is 0.
Earth’s natural constructive and destructive processes determine relief. Volcanic and tectonic mountain-building activity can construct high relief; by destruction, erosion by rivers and glaciers can do the same. So, high relief can be the product of either constructive or destructive processes. But low relief can also occur under contrasting processes: Land can be worn down by erosion or built by the piling of horizontal layers of sediments washed into an area like the Mississippi Delta, where the river constructed “flat” land by the layers of sediments it dropped.
Surveyors take very accurate readings of elevations and record them on topographic maps that serve a number of purposes, such as determining the potential risk of flooding in a riverside community. Because of the high relief at the Grand Canyon, the river will never flood the rim. By contrast, a storm-driven ocean can flood a large coastal section of coastal Delaware, New Jersey, and Louisiana, as hurricanes Sandy and Katrina demonstrated.
Survey the high points and low points of your life. Survey your current average elevation. Are your “ups” much higher than your “lows”? Or, rather, are your emotional elevations relatively flat? You’ll find relevance in the survey. Is the relief of your life the product of constructive processes or destructive ones? Just what causes changes in your personal elevations? How likely are you to be inundated by a flood of emotion? Are the “low points” flooded by moodiness and depression that make climbing to the next high a seemingly impossible task?
There is no perfect landscape, so residents of the Grand Canyon and of Delaware are accustomed to their local relief. They pattern their lives on the landscape. In a figurative sense high-relief and low-relief areas both offer “uppers” and “downers.” As an “upper,” high-relief can be majestic; just think of the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, and the Himalayas, all places where grand vistas unfold from both lower and higher elevations. But high relief can also be a hazardous “downer”: Steeper hillsides make footing treacherous on unexpected narrow ledges and loose rock, and such precipitous landscapes can lead to serious injuries from falls. Yes, the heights can be majestic, but traversing the relief might mean rapid life-altering or life-threatening surprises.
By contrast, a relatively flat landscape offers few, if any, surprises. For some, low-relief can foster a feeling of security. That security, however, comes with the inclusion of a “downer”: Life on such a landscape seems less majestic than life on high relief. Life on a plain can be, well, just plain plain, and it might even be suffused with ennui.
Now survey your emotional landscape. What is your emotional relief, and how did it form? Were the processes that built your emotional nature constructive or destructive?
Earth’s natural constructive and destructive processes determine relief. Volcanic and tectonic mountain-building activity can construct high relief; by destruction, erosion by rivers and glaciers can do the same. So, high relief can be the product of either constructive or destructive processes. But low relief can also occur under contrasting processes: Land can be worn down by erosion or built by the piling of horizontal layers of sediments washed into an area like the Mississippi Delta, where the river constructed “flat” land by the layers of sediments it dropped.
Surveyors take very accurate readings of elevations and record them on topographic maps that serve a number of purposes, such as determining the potential risk of flooding in a riverside community. Because of the high relief at the Grand Canyon, the river will never flood the rim. By contrast, a storm-driven ocean can flood a large coastal section of coastal Delaware, New Jersey, and Louisiana, as hurricanes Sandy and Katrina demonstrated.
Survey the high points and low points of your life. Survey your current average elevation. Are your “ups” much higher than your “lows”? Or, rather, are your emotional elevations relatively flat? You’ll find relevance in the survey. Is the relief of your life the product of constructive processes or destructive ones? Just what causes changes in your personal elevations? How likely are you to be inundated by a flood of emotion? Are the “low points” flooded by moodiness and depression that make climbing to the next high a seemingly impossible task?
There is no perfect landscape, so residents of the Grand Canyon and of Delaware are accustomed to their local relief. They pattern their lives on the landscape. In a figurative sense high-relief and low-relief areas both offer “uppers” and “downers.” As an “upper,” high-relief can be majestic; just think of the Grand Canyon, the Rockies, and the Himalayas, all places where grand vistas unfold from both lower and higher elevations. But high relief can also be a hazardous “downer”: Steeper hillsides make footing treacherous on unexpected narrow ledges and loose rock, and such precipitous landscapes can lead to serious injuries from falls. Yes, the heights can be majestic, but traversing the relief might mean rapid life-altering or life-threatening surprises.
By contrast, a relatively flat landscape offers few, if any, surprises. For some, low-relief can foster a feeling of security. That security, however, comes with the inclusion of a “downer”: Life on such a landscape seems less majestic than life on high relief. Life on a plain can be, well, just plain plain, and it might even be suffused with ennui.
Now survey your emotional landscape. What is your emotional relief, and how did it form? Were the processes that built your emotional nature constructive or destructive?
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