Dogs pee to mark their territory
Humans build walls
This is called civilization
There are up sides and down sides to civilization. Western civilization shares at least one thing in common with canines: they both demarcate their territory by the waste they leave at the interface between their territory and the wild. A dog’s territory is just seems less removed from the rest of nature. Nature has a way to deal with waste, with its intricate recycling processes. Nonetheless, humans, in their quest for advancing civilization, put increasing pressure on natural resources and natural processes which maintain balance and health within ecosystems. Not surprisingly, it appears that humans cannot build a wall secure enough to separate itself from the very environment that it depends. The human race does not yet seem to see the finish line as harmonizing with nature, but rather as exploiting and controlling nature. This reality is a backdrop for this short poem. The main gist of this poem addresses the larger issue of human nature. Humans have their own culture, which seems to be a quantum leap different than other life forms found in nature — separate if you will. Is this epic clash between human culture and many harmonies of nature at the essence of human nature? Our propensity to building walls physically, emotionally, and metaphorically, seems as evidence that this might be the case. Or, are these clashes and divisions simply stepping-stones in the evolution to some higher balance? The advancing complexity of civilization strikes me as a confounding mechanism that is a barrier to achieving such a higher balance. There is something profoundly simple in appreciating the harmony of nature. We should not discount its value by its omnipresence; on the contrary, we should heed omnipresence! Western civilization’s apparent addiction to increasing complexity and control, in my judgment, is a dangerous substitute for the wisdom of harmony ever-present in nature. Western civilization’s current heading is dangerously imbalanced. Reestablishing this fundamental balance resides in the already present wisdom of nature rather than some further development of technology to control an unruly nature that can only bend so far to our whims. Ultimately, we must make peace with nature, or humanity will suffer great harm, perhaps even extinction. Perhaps this is exactly the awareness humankind must gain before it can evolve to a higher level. May we grasp the wisdom of harmony ever-present in nature and resist the temptation to worship our own ingenuousness to temporarily forestall impending doom.
