Nature was generous to me today ...
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Today's beauty is divided into two folders:
Snake Den - a hike along the shoreline of Lake Seminole with birds, lots of birds, and a close encounter with four (4!) adult black racer snakes evidently close to their den. These snakes are especially beautiful and I happen to see them often but usually only after I nearly step on them. In this case, though, I was more fortunate
Heron Babies - Lake Seminole has a nesting area, an island in a pond, which is home to at least five great blue heron nests and one osprey nest. The ospreys performed a flight show right over my head and the baby great blue herons were plentiful and active.
***
There's a message in these photographs. The message, in its simplest form, is: Nature is infinitely, inexhaustibly beautiful twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year, essentially forever.
I do not approach Nature from the standpoint of false pride as the self-appointed "Dominant Animal" seeking to assert its dominance by consuming, destroying, despoiling and exterminating everything else. Although many people mistakenly assume that such behavior demonstrates conclusively that humans are the ultimate and greatest animal to ever inhabit the Earth and perhaps even the Universe (poor universe!) that is certainly the most miserable manner in which a species could live.
If you doubt that this is the worst manner in which an animal might live ... read the newspaper, visit a library, explore the Internet, turn on the television, listen to the radio, visit a museum, read the Scriptures (all of them), talk to your neighbor, drive on the interstate, and observe all of the sorrow and pain which is undoubtedly filling your own soul.
Humans are living in the worst possible way. I encourage humankind to live in a different manner ... in vain, of course, because one thing is certain: There's no stopping humankind. No amount of reasoning, argument and threats of extinction would serve to change human nature. Humankind is certainly beyond reach and beyond hope and quite literally out of time.
Nonetheless I discourage anyone from becoming discouraged by this message. The Truth is necessary even when it is dismal and irrevocable. But you need not become depressed. I encourage you to devote all of your attention to the appreciating of beautiful living things. Live at peace with your neighbors, strangers, your enemies (whether real or imagined), and with God (even if you don't believe in God).
I don't encourage anyone to adopt a religion nor even to remain religious. After spending a long time investigating humankind's religions I have reached this conclusion: Whether these religions are true or not, whether there is a God or not, all of these religions have failed.
Atheism, agnosticism, capitalism, socialism, science, technology, philosophy and psychology have all likewise failed.
The animals were all wise enough to avoid all of these failed ideas. While we might easily dismiss the animals as stupid everyone should keep in mind that all of these animals have survived for millions of years longer than the Homo sapiens and that the vast majority of them will continue to survive after the Homo sapiens are extinct.
From a natural selection standpoint, intelligence and tool-making are not beneficial. Humankind is an evolutionary dead-end.
I would encourage humankind to grow up but that is not at all possible. So I accept that Nature will solve the human problem in the same unmerciful manner as she solved all of the other evolutionary dead-ends. Extinction is as likely as death. But Life goes on with or without us.
David Mathews
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