[rcg1950]

Very fine essay. But I do take exception to your labeling the ‘work’ of evolution as often ending up as you put it “in a multi-billion years’ series of billions of failed species.” If anything is to be taken away from much of what is said on this sight and others like it, it is that finitude is the way of the world, infinite anything is the enemy. Immortality, be it of an individual, a nation, a civilization, a species, a solar system (and speculating, perhaps even a universe!) is not the way of the world. We all drink from the well and move on to leave room for our successors to enjoy or suffer their turn in the great wheel of life. The passing away of a generation is the necessary condition for exhuberant life to express itself in newness and freedom in the future. So, I contend, extinct species were not failures … they had their turn, participated in the life of the universe, and gave way to what came next. That said, I certainly hope humanity get’s more time to develop it’s unique way of being — though hopefully not at the terrible cost it is currently inflicting on all the other forms of life on our planet.

There’s an excellent series that takes this sort of view Living Nature view of things by a German by the name of Andreas Weber. Well worth reading. (via Resiliance and Shareable: [ https://www.shareable.net/blog/enlivenment-towards-a-fundamental-shift-in-the-concepts-of-nature-culture-and-politics-chapter- ]

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