Challenging Nature

 

At one time -- as in the proverbial 

'once upon a time', there was a certain

predictability of life. You could hope

and you could aspire but seldom did

beyond what your forbears anticipated.

The very rhythm of life was one of

lived expectations in synchronization

with nature and her elements. We're

free of that anchor now, so removed

from nature we hardly note its presence

for we've manipulated it as we tore

into a technological horizon people

back then would view, head spinning.

Just as nature became expendable over

time everything now falls into that

category and our entitlements have

risen far beyond what even we in our

early days might have imagined. Of

course nature is critically involved but not 

invoked; using her resources we have

industrialized and technologized the

world well beyond her simple blueprint

of survival. And in the process left

our own blueprint sprawling all over

the globe that is our home, the oceans

overrun with discards we've scattered

on the land, and the land reserved

for our imaginative creations geared

to expansive tastes which disentitle

other occupants squeezing them out of

their native habitats. Pity, that, but

after all the most intelligent, creative

life form on the planet does have the

final say, not? Right, not according to

nature's disposition and her proclivity

to allow those powerful elements of

her reign to react to the new self-rule

world of humankind, leaving us now

in a suspense of witnessing extremes of

yet another kind, inimical to ourselves.