Nature And Us

Are we still part of nature? Have we ever been part of nature? The 'natural' answer to this question is "of course we're part of nature!" At least in my mind.

_{Image by annca - source: Pixabay}

Is it true though? Do we really feel that way? Or do we think we are put on this planet to rule it as we see fit? The way I see us collectively behaving I'd say the latter. We really act as if own the planet, much more than as if we're part of the living planet; we extract from it whatever we need to fulfill our wants, and reinforce this blatant disrespect by letting the earth deal with all the waste we produce while getting and enjoying the things we want. And we somehow seem to think this is alright, that it somehow has to be this way...

This seems a very self defeating, and self destructive mindset to have, yet we persist in it. I'm going to use some wisdom from Douglas Adams who once tried to explain how we, homo sapiens, got to that mindset of being rulers of the planet. He used this narrative in several lectures, speeches and television appearances, so I'll give you the essence of it.

Everybody knows how evolution works, but here's a simple example. Let's say that a group of a particular species of mammal gets forced out of the main population, maybe through a food shortage or some cataclysm. And let's say that group had to migrate to some place where it's a bit colder what they were used to, then natural selection would, over several generations, "prefer" the genetic mutations that resulted in thicker fur. So if you'd see them generations later, that subspecies would have gotten thicker fur next to other possible adaptions to the lower temperatures.

_{source: PxHere}

We don't do that anymore. Evolution in a biological sense has stopped for homo sapiens because we don't wait anymore to adapt to the environment; we adapt the environment to us. So, when we get into a colder area, we see several animals that already have the thicker fur, and we just take it from them. We've pretty much mastered our environment, especially since we learned to use tools, next to cooperating. Tools, and building things with those tools are an important ingredient for the modern humans' mindset.

The ability to reason, to combine what we've learned from observations in the past, build from that abstract models for achieving an imagined future, has made us conclude some rather important things very early on in our cultural evolution. With greater understanding come greater questions, so when early man looked at the beautiful world around him, he naturally asked "who made all this?" Since we make things, we create things, it must mean that "things" big and small are made. The Maker must therefore be somewhat like us, a builder. Obviously MUCH BIGGER because the world is rather large. And He must be invisible too...

Since builders build things for a reason the next natural question to pop up is "why did He build all this?" Since early man found everything in nature to survive and prosper, he quickly came to the conclusion that all of this must have been made by Him for us. Watch and listen to Douglas Adam finish this story by comparing it to the mindset of a puddle of rainwater. No, really, watch it:

_{Douglas Adams: The Sentient Puddle}

Let's try to not end like the puddle! Beneath the video is a link to the full speech called "Parrots, The Universe, and Everything", which is more than an hour but which I highly recommend you all watch. We're always talking about "saving the planet", but that's wrong. The planet will be fine, with or without us. It is our self we need to save by changing our relationship to nature to a more respectful one.

Thanks for visiting my blog, dear reader. I'll be back here tomorrow and hope to see you here too. Until then, treat the planet nicely and keep steeming!

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