The power of nature

[david51058]

After witnessing the earthquake in Japan on TV it makes you realise the awsome power of nature and how it can ride roughshod over our best laid plans. We are tiny insignificant, unimportant little creatures on a tiny insignificant little planet in a vast infinite universe. How petty our little lives and squables are. It certainly puts things into perspective. Why do people take life so seriously? We are born, we live, we die, the end. We are nothing in the great scheme of things.

[Kromovaracun]

"What the Funicular^^...............camping holidays???"

*sigh*

I explained this quite clearly above. What I mean is the fact that people can now go out into the wild for leisure and feel pretty much safe. Go back about 600 years and you'll find the exact opposite - the wilderness is an object of fear, it's something to be avoided. The fact that it isn't anymore is relevant to what I was saying.

DT: Thanks for that - interesting post. I'm comparatively ignorant on this subject, so please allow for that in this question, but when you talk about the earth having the capacity to 'take back control', you seem to remember referring to it like an organism (with what looks to me like a nod toward Gaia theory). Is that intentional or am I reading too deeply?

[askyourgran]

<<Comparatively ignorant on this subject>>>>>> It shows kromo, it shows.

What a load of trollocks, 600 years ago more people were probably living in the wilderness than they do now.

Thank you DT that was interesting to note.

[Kromovaracun]

I'm not pulling this out of the air - Newman for instance springs to mind as someone who has written plenty about this in his study of fear...

[Kromovaracun]

He's just the first one that springs to mind off the top of my head though. I seem to remember similar observations by various medievalists/early modernists etc.

If you really really want me to, I can go and look some of them up...

[jno]

"the planet does what it wants, end of"

A planet that wants things? This sounds like a new age idea. Geezer will be knitting yoghurt next.

As for why people take life seriously.... because it's all they have, presumably.