Air keeps us breathing, it keeps us alive, it keeps us healthy and we all need it in some capacity. Yet, at the same time, it is one of the things that can destroy us. Tornados can grind you into a pulp, hurricanes can destroy vast regions and have killed over 10.000 in a single incident, and sandstorms can literally strip the flesh from your bones.
Fire keeps us warm and on some nights can be the difference between life and death by hypothermia. It allows us to cook food, preventing us from developing a host of diseases or becoming sick from poisons which can accompany raw meat and even vegetables. It can be used to cauterize wounds. It is also increadibly destructive: overrunning forrests, wiping out entire buildings in a single evening, and scarring people so horribly that they never truly recover--physically or psychologically.
Water is useful for cleaning, keeping contaminants off of ourselves and our food, and it is necessary for life. A human can survive several weeks without food but would be hard pressed to survive more than a single day without water. Yet floods have drowned millions and can sweep cars from the road, tidal waves can wipe out entire villages, and it is warm water that gives birth to the strongest of hurricanes. Avalanches and thin ice cause additional dangers for the unwary, and saturated ground can cause buildings to sink and roots to rot.
Earth. The rock upon which we have built our civilization. Stable and reassuring--it keeps us out of the sea and provides a place where the plants we consider essential to life can grow. Yet it is often treacherous: Earthquakes have leveled cities with very little warning, rock slides have wiped out the unwary, and jungles are still extremely trecherous for the untrained.
Nature is not only--and cannot be portrayed as just--a kind mother. It is a cruel mistress and fierce master that does not hesitate to cull the weak and occasionally wipe the slate so that things can begin anew. As hard as these things are to accept on in the microcosm of our lives, on a larger scale these things are important--the forest fire is vital for the long-term health of the ecological system, the culling of a herd by wolves makes the population stronger, and the occasional disease can help reduce the population that has to be fed to reasonable levels.
Yet we hate to apply this model to humans and do not like to think of ourselves as predators. We want to prevent diseases in third world countries and provide them with food when they cannot support themselves--not through trade nor farming nor livestock--at their current level of population. We want to protect humans and defend animals; some of us doing this to the point of calling it a crime to eat animals. Anyone who has met a wolf or a great cat can tell you that it is not evil to be predatory. Anyone who has seen chimpanzees knows that we are omnivores--not herbivores--by nature. I've seen a lot of bleeding hearts
go out, but is this really nature's way?
Nature does not kill with malice, but nature does kill and recognizes the necessity of it. This killing can cleanse the land and the people, it can make us stronger as a group, no matter how hard it is to endure in the short-term or for the individual. Yes, we should protect ourselves and our loved ones. Yes, we should defend our homes and our neighbors. No, we should not kill others simply because we can. This is all part of nature as well. But, in our actions, we should at least keep nature's double-edged sword in mind.
The next time you call the corners or touch the elements remember that these are the forces that give life, but also remember that these are the forces that take it away.
Last Updated: 17 August 2004
Copyright © 2003, 2004 David Hartwell Clements, All Rights Reserved.