I often think about the boundless and inexorable power of time. The span of our lives is infinitesimal compared to the timescales upon which species and planets spin in and out of existence. That is perhaps one reason why I am drawn to evolutionary biology, because, somehow, it expands the reach of my mortality when I find clues in genomes of things that have occurred millions of years in the past.
Our human lives, cloaked in societal trappings, are easily considered in isolation from nearly all aspects of biology and natural history. Our ambitions are often foremost in our minds--we deny our inevitable senescence and ignore, to the point of doom, the vast ecological network that our species evolved within. I suppose it is in some ways a consequence of our social brains, and I wonder -- can we help it? Can we look beyond our egos and embrace our place in the interconnected web of life -- to save it? I think so, but it takes effort, and humility, and time -- however much time we have.
And as we make our way, as best we can, Mary Oliver assures us of this truth so that we may have hope, to carry on --
"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things."
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