Ever hugged a tree? As proposed by Edward O Wilson, the celebrated naturalist and pioneer of Myrmecology (the study of ants), the “Biophilia hypothesis” suggests that we all have an innate affinity with nature and a tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. Nietzsche’s pronouncement of the Death of God and the increasing agnostic outlook of global citizens have left us feeling devoid of ultimate meaning aside from as part of a continuum of life on Planet Earth. Wilson goes as far as to argue that due to the emergence of the human mind as a product of evolutionary forces, we are eternally bound to the natural systems which have shaped us. In this regard we are not only a part of nature, but our perceptions are further a creation of natural process.
From the offset then, we are nature. But how do we relate to this idea day to day? Personally I was long ago yanked away from the idea of an all consuming ‘energy’ which ties me to natural spaces by a cynical friend. This probably pushed me from the romanticised view of nature to the scientific analysis which characterises my attitudes today. And yet, standing in a rainy forest, or stumbling across a group of ants building exquisite geometric structure certainly elicits a response of wonder (I think the picture below illustrates this). Is it possible to find a balance of the two?
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