What constitutes news comes from word of mouth, the mail, a newspaper, TV or online. Lately, it’s become difficult to separate them. In this day and age, evaluation gives way to the stream of information.

I’m not an online chat person; I try not to imagine what’s not in front of my face too much. Too much nowadays includes scams, disinformation and ill will. It seems people’s expectations of each other have been lowered, with no room for discussion.

And what bothers me most is how things that really don’t matter seem to mean more to us than things that really do. Some realities are more convenient to accept than others.

On a 48-degree day last January, I took a walk on the beach at Saco Bay. From Bayview to Ocean Park, a berm of sand 20 feet to 50 feet wide had been deposited on the top of the previous beach surface by two recent storms. It was literally 1-2 feet higher than what was very familiar to me over the years.

From Bayview down to Camp Ellis the deposit wasn’t as noticeable though storm waves had scooped out sand beneath the dune grass most of the way. Several beach houses had heavy equipment in their yards shoring up the fringe to prevent another breach. It didn’t look any better at Camp Ellis, where sea water had topped the massive boulder wall. I ended up talking to a fellow whose porch was not intact — like several porches nearby. He had recently moved from Canada. He didn’t know about FEMA. Now he knows.

Maybe the fellow’s particular problem doesn’t compare to the impact of weather events in Maine like Hurricane Gloria in 1985, Hurricane Bob in 1991 or the 1998 ice storm, yet other occurrences seem to be trending the wrong direction.

Camp Ellis has a history of storm damage and a need for FEMA aid well outside the hurricanes. In the past, I could walk between its boulder wall and the waves at low tide. That’s impossible now, due to further additions of boulders over which storm waves still break and threaten the fellow, his toddler and his St. Bernard — who probably won’t be able to come to the rescue.

A while back, as a buffer against the waves, a huge berm of sand was constructed under a woven plastic netting in front of the boulder wall. Most of the berm is already gone; the ensuing storms blew the netting apart. No amount of money is going to prevent nature from reestablishing its boundaries.

I’ve been “from away” for 40 years. I’d hate to see Maine become a state of factions. I believe the natural charm of this state is what makes a Mainer. There is no cause which justifies a lack of respect for each other. If Mother Nature can show us how to cooperate, I’d call that good news.

Unfortunately, the Dec. 2023 storm and the second storm less than a month later rearranged the beach and exposed an ass-backwards approach to climate change. Mopping up the damage with FEMA funds will eventually become unaffordable. As long as we humans don’t invest in programs to at least mitigate our negative impact on the environment, we can drown in our ignorance. This is the wrong course to bring us together.

The really big problem is that modern communication has served to connect us and to separate us at the same time. In the confusion of trying to determine what is important and what is not, happenstance and opinion are reported and issues are overlooked. We avoid dealing with the differences. Whatever is in front of our faces can be converted to whatever digital world we think it should be.

The natural world flourishes and self-corrects at the same time. Catastrophes have been restored with balance so far. If people don’t want to talk about life and be part of it, they can try to recreate it all they want.