Waldo reflects on his childhood and growing up. The delights of infancy, with its unformed thoughts and opaque desires, gave way to religious learning and questioning. There was also the dawning realization of the self as a specific individual, followed by a quest to understand his place in the larger world. Waldo remembers reading the Bible at seven and being devoted to its teachings. As he grew older, he became tormented by doubt and a growing belief in his own wickedness. These torments alternated between self-condemnation and religious ecstasy—a feeling of relinquishing the self to God in peace.

Later, there came an acknowledgment of the beauty and comfort that can be found in nature. Waldo found God in the landscape, in the indigenous peoples, and in everything he saw around him. His father took him to a church, though, and this disrupted that notion: Waldo found nothing to inspire him in organized religion. This led Waldo back to questioning the existence of God and finally to concluding that God does not exist, at least for him. Though this initially led to feelings of despair, eventually Waldo returned to seeking meaning in nature. The ants and beetles are not so different from humans, and all living creatures derive what they need from the land.