In the distance

Over there the sun is blazing! Cloud has brought respite over here for a while. Capitalise while you can! Homeostasis, photosynthesis and the hunt for food all change when the environment changes, everything sustainable up to a point.

Without the sun we would not be here at all. Continuous exposure to its force would wipe us out. Without the breaks of nights for rest in darkness and coolness, we could not live on earth. Without return of the sunny morning we would soon all be dead. Sun worship in our history is easy to understand.

Plants and animals adapt to cope with a multitude of conditions, avoiding others as part of life’s mission. Wonderful how small the intervals of comfort and survival on many variables are, how different for some species and to what lengths every species goes to cope. Life is simultaneously delicate and robust while always changing, for it is a phenomenon in time of a combination of physical factors that may not last.

There are two levels of coping for the living: comfortable times when conditions do not exceed the narrow or preferred range that is easy on the body, versus harder but manageable times when wider, still tolerable intervals in things like temperature, moisture, shelter, food availability, natural enemies, etc., test but do not kill.

Human degradation of the environment emanates from maintaining these comfort zone requirements for just our one species; the others make do with our leftovers of space and resources, or die. We are only beginning to take note of this.

Gradual arrival of every new challenge allows the species for preparation and adaptation. Sudden appearance of a threat more easily leads to extinction.

If there would be enough time, people might evolve into three-headed monsters, should that be the only way of ensuring their survival. And the narrative in favour of three heads would soon be shaped in song, elevated by a three-headed Shakespeare, Goethe or Dostoevsky.

All one-headed ancestors would be wiped out, couldn’t laugh at us… the us there would then be.