Heroes Not Zombies

We have developed a strange way of thinking about the relationship of human beings and Nature. In fact, that very sentence is an example of how we think. There’s us, human beings. And there’s Nature. They are different. We separate ourselves out from other forms of Life, and from all the other ways Life manifests itself in Nature. We think we are not the same as other creatures. Maybe a bit like apes, maybe a bit like other mammals, but certainly not like flowers or trees. And even if we identify with LIFE in its multitude of forms, we still think of ourselves as separate from the other forms of Nature – earth, rock, water, wind, energy.

But we don’t stop there. We don’t just consider ourselves separate from, and in some way outside of, Nature. We tell ourselves Nature is there for us to exploit, to consume and to control. We think of being in a constant battle with Nature, wrestling with its power and its potential to do us harm. We conceive of the evolution of Life as a perpetual competition, a striving to survive, and only the strongest will win that battle.

But what kind of lives does that kind of thinking create for us? What kind of Nature does that attitude bring into existence? What daily experience do we have when we live from that perspective?

Over the last hundred years, physics has shown us that there are no separate, discreet, irreducible “particles” which are the “building blocks” of reality. We have begun to understand (or maybe rediscover) that any sense of separateness is a creation of the human mind. In particular we use our left cerebral hemisphere to filter and re-present the phenomena of reality to ourselves. This gives us a view which declares boundaries, and which creates the impression of separateness. As we explore the connections, the bonds and the relationships we begin to experience Life quite differently. And as we take on board the phenomenon of integration – of the creation of mutually enhancing bonds between well differentiated parts – we begin to see how co-operation is the basis of evolution, at least as much as, if not more than, competition.

So we can change our focus, taking on board Einstein’s question of whether or not we think of the universe as a friendly place, and then we see in Nature not just the inter-connectedness of everything, but how this Earth is perfectly created to sustain and develop Life itself. How everyday life is only possible because of the innumerable beneficial links between ourselves and others, between ourselves and other species, between ourselves and those who have lived before us, and between ourselves and the rest of the Universe from which we emerge.

The image above is a path. I think it is beautiful and shows an intimate relationship between human beings and trees. Here’s another path, quite different from that one, but which also makes me think about the paths we create as we live in this world.

Maybe it’s time to create a better path? A more “natural” path?