‘Cradle of life’ that nature is, has baffled man through its mystery and dynamism. Amazed of nature that a man is since his birth, instilling in him fear, excitement and never-ending quests. Works of nature as mysterious as they appear have inspired great minds since bygone times resulting in ‘enabling’ wisdom in the form of poetry, art, technology, etc. These quests of man, I believe are an imprint of nature’s most potent evolutionary process which not only created life but also perfected it from a cell to complex beings, man is one.
Not only life but also lives’ interplay, providing man many learning cues. The life-evolution process has been consistently perfecting systems where incidences of entropy were countered with increased efficiency. Mutations that evolved beings, I see them as an intrinsic part of the process of acclimatization on a long time scale. This process of mutation though alters morphology and anatomy beings but still retains the ‘essence of nature’. This natural imprint is evident through history where simpler forms of anthropogenic things that are material and abstract evolved from simple form and function incidentally becoming complex in due course. Tools, as we know, evolved from crude forms to precise in form and even automated in function. Society saw the evolution of specialized institutions with the division of labor and men in them evolved from ‘do-it-all’ to masters of their respective crafts. Institutions began showing immortal traits like group immortality where states, organizations, and companies live forever even though bearers of positions are replaced in due course. It’s a phenomenon evident inside all beings including man, where cells are specialized and even though cells die but are replaced enabling a being to survive. This process is repeated where beings are born and die but they leave behind a progeny enabling genetic continuity.
Nature is mirrored in all-natural creations and man is no exception. Nature in its process shows great detachment where in order to achieve harmony it creates a hierarchy of life forms where one form is food for another and this continues from one level to another which seems like a perfect cycle. But assume that there is one cycle which is a fallacy there are many of them with zones of intersection and overlays. Nature, as it manifests in man, brings him in a constant tussle of “I” and “other”. This I and others exist not only outside of a person but also inside him, there is a constant tussle.
Nature keeps detachment as its core virtue. I experienced it very early in my life. When I was three years, my parents got me a puppy that grew with me like a family. I was most attached to him but when he completed his life cycle and died, his loss though irreparable made me learn the meaning of loss and the non-permanent nature of things around. When I moved to Japan at the age of 23, I left my dear ones back home in India and this was realized all over again. I felt the same in Tokyo during Hanami season, as it began, it showered beauty all around and I loved it to the core but deep within I knew this will not last…
Man has been harnessing nature both within by keeping certain emotions, traits, or physical attributes in a controlled condition and be able to create various creative expressions known as arts, which enhance his abstract abilities but with added intrinsic quest ability to achieve harmony and remaining detached takes these forms further higher. This phenomenon of being one with nature is best expressed in traditional societies such as Japan. They have lived with and in nature and thus have unbroken chain abstract perfection. Reflected in ideas like ‘zen’ and ‘fudoshin’. When it comes to harnessing natural elements, results are more evident where the wheel was inspired from rolling stones leading to perfected cogged automata like a watch, heavy machines, transport systems, etc. This observation and subsequently harnessing energy or achieving reduced entropy can be no better than taking the example of electron and its functions in a controlled environment. This electron’s observation led to electricity, devices, semiconductors, etc.
Currently, growths outside and inside of humans are the fastest in history but the future still is not as positive. It lies in achieving greater harmony and peace through the synergy of abstractions like polity, economy, and sociology, etc., and material through varied tech. Detachment and synergy with temperance are consistent learnings from nature and that is where the future lies.
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