You can call it sublime or whatever else you want, but the feeling we get from rhapsodizing over nature isn’t about nature. Often, when we think of nature or speak poetically about it, we’re just looking at the literally far away – we’ve reduced nature to an ideal. We’re chasing an idea of the natural world for the feeling it gives us, whether that’s sublimity, serenity, or piety. But much more common than these fleeting, self-aggrandizing moments are the wasps. Wasps remind us of their stinging existence.

Nature is hardly ideal. In reality, it is more like our neighbor. And like our neighbors, it is often annoying.