When you look out into the wilder world and observe or at least think about other creatures, I believe that life for animals involves pursuit, purpose, curiosity and sacrifice. You could argue that we as humans have fallen into the trap of comfort in recent years, depriving ourselves of some natural values of ours in favour of efficiency.
What can we learn from nature?
- Pursuit = Lions live the best quality of life, obtaining the best possible rank to get the best possible mate, to access the best food and are willing to put their lives on the line for all of these things. It's in their nature to reach the conclusion that otherwise it's not a life worth living.
- Purpose = The urge to collaborate and build megastructures to serve a greater purpose. To work together in harmony to move great amounts of material (in the case of ants) or to create perfectly-sized honeycomb structures that offer the maximum amount of strength for the least amount of material to cover the space.
- Curiosity = If you've seen videos about octopuses, in the wild or in experiments, they are in equal parts inquisitive, curious, devious & playful. They can build structures, edit their genetics and create synthetic camouflage skin on the fly. Often times they do it for fun, sometimes they plan far in advance to the detriment of efficiency. Furthermore, mother octopuses have been observed dying after bringing their eggs in the world, protecting them from predators at all costs without hunting for food during that time.
- Sacrifice = Animals are willing to make sacrifices in order to preserve legacy and order. In the case of the lion sacrifice for himself, for the octopus for their offspring or in the above for bees and ants, to attack the queen if she is not working in the best interests of the colony.
Comment below...
What else do you think we as people can take from nature? Which one word would you use that aligns with us the most?