The Lessons of Nature

Nature is valuable not only for itself; it is also to be revered as the single most persuasive and redemptive work of philosophy.

Nature corrects our erroneous – and ultimately very painful – the sense that we are essentially free. The idea that we have the freedom to fashion our own destinies as we please has become central to our contemporary world-view: we are encouraged to imagine that we can, with time, create exactly the lives we desire, around our relationships, our work and our existence more generally.

This hopeful scenario has been the source of extraordinary, unnecessary suffering. There are many things we want desperately to avoid, which we will spend huge parts of our lives worrying about and which we will then bitterly resent when they force themselves upon us nevertheless.

The idea of inevitability is central to the natural world: the deciduous tree has to shed it leaves when the temperature dips in autumn; the river must erode its banks, the cold front will deposit its rain; the tide has to rise and fall.

The laws of nature are governed by forces nobody chose, no one can resist and which brook no exception.