As the rain pelts down and we approach the fall, I always marvel at the magnificence of the natural environment in Taiwan. The Portuguese aptly called our island home Ilha Formosa or “beautiful island.” I have spent some time on the east coast of Taiwan and the experience of the morning mist that often covers the flora and fauna is indelible. I am reminded of the west coast of Vancouver Island, in Canada, where I grew up, and its attendant primordial forest. In our industrialized world, this access to the living world, however, is more and more difficult to achieve on a day-to-day basis. We have become separated from nature to our great disadvantage. I am always slightly discomforted when people kill cockroaches. I am not a vegetarian; but, I believe that all life has value. This creature must be here for a reason. Why kill it when we could redirect its efforts by sealing food containers, and the like, in our home or place of business? Cockroach-like fossils have been dated to at least 300 million years. I like the Occam’s Razor approach. (1) Gaia puts nothing here that is not necessary.
Paul and Anne Ehrlich have recently published the article How humans cause mass extinctions. “We are in the process of killing off our only known companions in the universe, many of them beautiful and all of them intricate and interesting. This is a tragedy, even for those who may not care about the loss of wildlife. The species that are so rapidly disappearing provide human beings with indispensable ecosystem services: regulating the climate, maintaining soil fertility, pollinating crops and defending them from pests, filtering fresh water, and supplying food. The cause of this great acceleration in the loss of the planet’s biodiversity is clear: rapidly expanding human activity, driven by worsening overpopulation and increasing per capita consumption. We are destroying habitats to make way for farms, pastures, roads, and cities. Our pollution is disrupting the climate and poisoning the land, water, and air. We are transporting invasive organisms around the globe and overharvesting commercially or nutritionally valuable plants and animals. The more people there are, the more of Earth’s productive resources must be mobilized to support them. … With each new person, the problem gets worse.” The result will be a society that uses the benefits of the natural environment without experiencing its benefits and beauty.
The other evening I was watching a program on television (sh – don’t tell anyone) and a commercial was played on the screen, again and again. Two young men were seated in the back of a taxi playing a game on their phones. The match was a simulated military assault on an opposing platoon of uniformed soldiers: bullets were flying and bodies, and buildings, exploding. I could not but think of the carnage currently occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq, to name but a few countries. I know that the gaming industry is enormous and popular, but we owe it to our young people to expose them to the reality of war. We assume that world is a violent place, but is this true? Gandhi with his belief in Satyagraha, “… the force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence …” would totally disagree. (2) The result of our love for these types of games is arguably a suicide rate among the society which is at an all-time high (3) and a fearful and neurotic populace. Each day we must inculcate our psychological being with positive and joyful images, not those of death and destruction. When you awaken in the morning, take a few moments for yourself: recite an aphorism (4) of your own making to launch your day. Both our natural environment and our mental environment need to be healthy and dynamic. We have a lot of work to do: the future is exciting. The comedian Ellen DeGeneres (b. 1958) leaves us with a thought: If we’re destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there’s got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, and more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.
A small joke: A young student told his father that he had failed a recent mathematics quiz. “What happened?” asked his father. “You usually do so well.” “The math genius who sits beside me was absent on the day of the test,” was the boy’s reply.
This week, please ask yourself how you interact with nature.
Every day look for something magical and beautiful.
Quote: Try to volunteer and spend time with people who are not so fortunate. It is a humbling and edifying experience.
Footnotes:
1) Occam’s razor is called the “Law of Parsimony,” devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347): Suppose there are two explanations for an occurrence, the simpler one is usually better. This is an extremely simplified example.
Two trees have fallen down during a windy night. Why?
There two possible explanations:
a) The wind has blown them down.
b) Two meteorites have each taken one tree down, and after that hit each other and removed any trace of their presence.
Which assumption would you choose?
2) Satyagraha
3) The Drugging of Our Children,
The Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda
4) An aphorism is a terse saying, expressing a general truth, principle, or astute observation, and spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form: “Thank you God for granting me another day of beautiful consciousness so that I can affect positive change in the world.”