Ahhh, Nature

Dec 11, 2007 by Naomi.

How can people get back to nature if they don’t know what nature is? The human species within the past two thousand years set itself so far above nature that to find its way back compels a retreat. Because the species considers itself “better” (which means higher like on a ladder), anything less is undesirable. How anxious will the species be to back down a ladder feet first? And what then? Will it expect to step into something like what a house cat deposits in the dirt?

Even that, too, is sad because expelling feces is not only natural but imperative. People and their bodily functions ARE natural. Animals eat. Whatever an animal ingests is dealt with within each individual’s body. In odd ways sometimes. Lactose intolerance is one way some human bodies refuse to accept dairy products. Other problems the medical system considers allergies, show up in itchy and unsightly rashes, or more serious ways that lead to death. Sometimes in very short order.

Brains, curiosity, and creativity allowed upright humans to do what other animals could not and still cannot do. Human species left the tree swingers five million years past. The prehensile thumb went beyond other apes. First, to record symbols the species devised, then to preserve those records, which were widely disseminated and painstakingly improved upon by succeeding generations. And eventually inventors came up with paper, printing presses and all the resulting knowledge available to following generations. Pretty cool, huh?

And it all came naturally within the last fifty thousand years. Although not easily, nor quickly. The species must find its way back to nature. The alternative is to destroy the very habitat on which it depends.

Can the species expect continuous happy progress for at least the next fifty thousand years?

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