Lessons from the Nature

Bindi requested me to write short speech for her niece. Got me thinking.. here's my take on it:

Lessons Learnt from the Nature
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Loss of lively hood of the fishermen due to Oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. Thousands died in Bhopal Gas tragedy. Hundreds of thousands in Latur earth quake and the Tsunami.

The events of gloom and doom, when faced with Natures fury remind me of famous lines from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

The above events denote our dependence on our environment. When we corrupt our environment we pay a price. When we don’t pay heed to it, or don’t understand and respect its power, we also pay a price. Nature looks good but can easily be wild and furious. We have to respect it!

Be it for resources or shelter. We can't survive or sustain without bounty that is provided free to us by the Nature. We can learn from it, or not, but its there and we are dependent on it. Now and again, we see it in its awesome force, when Nature decides to teach us a lesson or two. Its sort of a cliche to say we have to learn from Nature, and more often its misused by propagators of homegrown remedies rather than to look into deeper existential state which we find ourselves in.

Let me see what I think nature teaches us. It certainly is not just a Mr.Fixit offering sundry cures for small time ailments and cute alternatives for frequently used manmade tools.

Care for and about the environment : First thing nature tries to teach us is we share this planet. We are dependent on the ecosystem. If we tamper with it, if we don’t care about environment, when we take it for granted, we shall be in trouble. We are product of nature ourselves. No less natural then anything else we see around us. We have evolved in this environment but not so far evolved that we can dis-consider precocious condition that we live it. Droughts, famines, floods and storms are also reminders. They tell us that our food sources, our living environment, our entire existence and sustenance is dependent on our ECOSYSTEM. When one link fails it can start a chain of cascading events which can be catastrophic.

Nature shows us the past, so that we can be careful in future also that life is fragile and precious, once gone cannot be brought back: Nature also lets us glimpse of ages gone by. Species and organisms that ruled the earth. Mammoths, Dinosaures, Saber toothed tigers.. strong powerful creatures who were wiped out most possibly due to climate change. Changes in environment. It is reminder of what can be, if we are not careful. It also shows us that life is fragile and once we lose a species we have lost it for ever. Biodiversity has hidden within solutions to many problems that plaque the mankind. From antibiotics to anti malaria tablets, to finding ways to dispose of waste in ecofriendly manner, to new techniques and technologies for generating energy, to even learning deeper lessons about sustainability of species and need to control our predatory all consuming behavior. Within biodiversity we shall find answers.

Nature tells us to Learn and evolve, the power of the POSSIBLE: All is not grime though. Nature shows us other aspect. Of Nurture. Of caring for the whole. It sustains and cares for millions of species of life. It shows us life’s longing for itself. Life wants To Be. Strength, survival, evolution, we find it in nature. From the way birds evolved and learnt to fly, to the way fishes adapted to live on land. From tiny bacteria who can survive even on hot sulfur outlets in depth of the sea, we see the continuous evolution for survival. There is a very very important lesson in this. Lesson is EVOLVE. LEARN. We are where we are today, as the prime predator on this planet because of evolution. Because of our constant yearning to learn. Certainly nature shows us that learning is good. It is function of growth. Look around us, examples are bountiful and abundant.

Finally all it takes is a press of a button on a nuclear warhead to destroy all, or an oil spill to corrupt all. We need to understand that we have had privileged existence. We have used abundant resources provided by Nature and our behavior has become consumerist and parasitic. It is time to take note of the damage done. To go from having parasitic to symbiotic relation with our environment. To strive to protect that which remains. To nurture and grow for future generations. We have to do it ourselves, else Nature will teach us how, and Nature’s lessons are not always pleasant, although they are memorable and important.