In these modern times, many of us in the industrialized and civilized world are quite disconnected from being truly interdependent on nature itself.
Many of us live in cities or towns in a house built to protect us from the elements, but also to provide a comfortable, convenient existence. And I certainly won’t complain about that.
But it is a bit unfortunate though that, since we have created a modernized, mechanized, and material society around us, and have made money the primary means as to how to obtain sustenance, we have, in many ways, lost sight of a true reality.
That reality is that we are a part of nature, and not above it. The natural world does not revolve around us, nor is our natural environment here only for us to use with reckless abandon.
Without getting into an ideological debate with this, it is important to remember that this notion is not incompatible with religious faiths, whatever your belief is, so my intention is certainly not one of exclusion. I feel that evolution and religion are compatible, and belief in one does not necessarily mean that you have to disbelieve or discredit the other.
So with that being said, let me get back to my examination of this notion that we are a part of nature, and realizing our place in it to the fullest extent possible can help us become more of an interdependent society, rather than a dependent one.
And this will be done in a more philosophical sense, with which you, depending on your situation or environment, may be able to extract and apply things to your specific situation as you see fit. Obviously, we all may not have tillable land to start a garden in our backyards, or live in proximity to an area with which farmers’ markets thrive. And that’s fine – the most important thing to keep in mind is that the simple realization of our place in nature can help bring about positive change, no matter how small, and a collection of small changes equals much larger ones!
In many ways, we have built a society that relies entirely on money to function. If the money were to all of a sudden become scarce or lose its value, then many people would not know what to do.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, we have lived in an era of relative abundance. Due to technological advances and the motive of profit, entities have been developed that make a business of production for the sake of making as much money as possible.
Now granted, there have always been businesses throughout modern history, but never on the scale of the corporations that have come about through the evolution of the Industrial Revolution. This sense of wide-scale production and transportation has created methods to put the production and dissemination of goods in the hands of large manufacturers and distributors, thus making it easier and less expensive to obtain whatever goods a person desires, as long as he or she can afford them. What has resulted is what we could call “the economy.”
Instead of making things for ourselves, from resources at hand and local to us, we have become reliant on going to “the store” for everything that we want or need. Most of us no longer plow our own fields to grow our food, make our own clothes, dig our own wells for water, and so forth. Without this hands on approach to nature, we lose sight of what it really takes to bring about our own sustenance. We do not see what it takes to grow a bushel of wheat. We do not see what it is like to raise a herd of sheep to bring about wool for our clothing. We have not built our own shelter.
Now again, I am not saying that we should all abandon our way of life and go out into the woods and live off the land. But I am suggesting that we at least remember that the world around us is not all about cars, streets, stores, airplanes, TV, and such. We are interdependent with nature.
Now there is a large degree of interdependence within in the current-day economy, but that interdependence has shifted from a true back and forth relationship with nature, to one where it is entirely dependent on nature, and interdependent on other industries, all of which are mostly only dependent on nature as well.
To me, this sort of relationship can easily get out of balance, because in general, it does not fully heed the principles discussed in this post. Our economy has become out of balance, possibly and partly because of a disproportionate measure of handling of resources among different entities, whether that be money itself, raw materials, natural resources, and more.
When we try to make the most profit possible, for the quickest gain, while spending the least amount of money and effort, the result can many times be a degradation of the resources required to produce the product in the first place.
A good example of this would be a corporate farm that produces only one type of crop in its fields. Over time, without rotating different crops on the same field, which can help maintain the right balance of nutrients in the soil, the soil can become infertile and essentially useless, therefore deeming that area of land no longer tillable.
Thus, the crux of my point: Without the realization that we are indeed part of nature (interdependent), instead of masters of it manipulating it for our sole benefit (dependent), then imbalance follows, which wreaks havoc on our world and economy as a whole.
When you realize our place in nature, you realize the importance of nature’s principles, more of which will be discussed in updates to come…
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