The living world is beautiful because of ospreys, ducks and baby peafowl ...
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Isn't this the sort of thing which humans should think about rather than all those other things? I'm always moved to pity by the realization that humans seem so very prone to think about the most terrible things ... verified easily enough simply by turning on a television and scanning the channels. Or by visiting a blog and reading the comments.
In addition to the beauties which inhabit my world, I spent some time reading National Geographic magazine and was very pleased by this ...
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/...
I'm especially fond of orchids and their pollinators. Of course. Look at the photos: wasps - bee - butterfly - hummingbird ... it seems like the orchids attract the most beautiful sort of attention.
The article is fascinating, too. Orchids are just astonishing. Orchids do seemingly impossible thing.
In particular I appreciated how Michael Pollan began the article:
We animals don't give plants nearly enough credit. When we want to dismiss a fellow human as ineffectual or superfluous, we call him a "potted plant." A "vegetable" is how we refer to a person reduced to utter helplessness, having lost most of the essential tools for getting along in life. Yet plants get along in life just fine, thank you, and did so for millions of years before we came along. True, they lack such abilities as locomotion, the command of tools and fire, the miracles of consciousness and language. To animals like ourselves, these are the tools for living we deem the most "advanced," which is not at all surprising, since they have been the shining destinations of our evolutionary journey thus far. But the next time you're tempted to celebrate human consciousness as the pinnacle of evolution, stop to consider where you got that idea. Human consciousness. Not exactly an objective source.
He's right. Humankind vastly overinflates humankind's place in the Universe in the service of humankind's ego. Human intelligence and consciousness is worth something but it ain't worth much.
It is easy enough to verify the intrinsic smallness of the human mind. Observe how humans spend their time, what humans think about, all the petty arguments which perpetually afflict even the most peaceful and passive humans, and all the fictional and real violence which is on television 24/7.
Human intelligence fails in one other very important respect:
Human intelligence generated the Sixth Great Extinction, an extinction of such magnitude that it will include among its victims humankind.
Human intelligence isn't a blessing, it is a curse. Not only is it a curse, it is a curse which leads to death and death-obsession.
Fortunately the birds are not so afflicted. The birds are just fine.
David Mathews
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