Is Mother Nature, Really a Mother?

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Is Mother Nature, Really a Mother?

The term, Mother Nature, that we often use, is misleading and quite the opposite of what nature, really is. 

True, Mother Nature nurtures us all. But quite so does the sun, and the planetary system too. 

Without the exact intensity of sunlight- not less, not more- the sun casts on Earth, would we be able to survive?

Without the precise gravity that the cosmic universe places us in, we would not have walked upright but have crawled. 

Is Mother Nature as benign and benevolent as she is supposed to be?

Here is a story, an incident, that will shine some light upon her hidden, ugly, face. 

In 2005, renowned German filmmaker, Werner Herzog, produced the documentary film, ‘Grizzly Man’. 

This film is about a man, a Grizzly Bear aficionado, Timothy Treadwell, who passionately followed the life of these bears for decades and documented them. 

Herzog was asked to make a film on him as he was handed over the footage of bears that Timothy shot. 

Did I tell you this was after he and his girlfriend were devoured by the same bears they loved?  

In this film, Herzog questioned the notion that nature needs to be loved. That love cost Timothy his life. He imagined a reciprocated love from the bears that was not indeed there. 

Herzog reminds us that projecting our emotions to nature could prove fatal. 

What we have to learn is to leave nature alone. Environmentalists have been shouting this from their rooftops for a very long time. 

Environmentalism is not about romanticism but just a utilitarian thought. 

A romantic notion of nature has cost dearly for many iconic individuals. 

In the early 1990s, Christopher McCandless, a young man full of enthusiasm for nature, hiked into the snowy wilderness of Alaska. 

Living off the land was not as beautiful and romantic as he had imagined.

Starving in the snow, unskilled to endure such a rough climate and terrain, he ate a poisonous plant, got sick and died. 

His journey into the wilderness was still romanticised. It was made into a movie, ‘Into the Wild’. 

I am not picturing his courage and romanticism in a diminished light. I want to remind myself and all of you that nature does not work according to our wishful thinking.

At a young age, we all believe nature has a plan- surely a good one -for us. Does nature have such plans? No.

Most of us enter old age regretting our unrealised potential. We finally understand that nature doesn’t care if you leave this world without contributing to your maximum potential.

Nature works in averages. Only an average number of people are supposed to realise their potential or live up to old age for the unhindered continuation of the species. 

Richard Dawkins, in his path-breaking book, ‘The Selfish Gene’, and many of his likes have dealt with this question exquisitely. 

It is clear nature is not altruistic. Dawkins could not find much altruism in humans even. 

In this dog-eat-dog world, the only consolation is that nature does not have anything especially against you. Unless struck down by death, a disease, or an accident, you have considerably good prospects in this world, if you are resourceful enough. 

However, can everyone be equally resourceful? No. So, there is no justice in the making of this world. There is no equal opportunity at all. 

This is why we need our collective civilisation, grand ideas of equality, humanism, democracy, human rights, fraternity, secularism, and the rule of law. Or we will be judged (by ourselves rather. Who else is there to judge us?) as a cruel species nurtured by an indifferent bitch of mother nature.  

Here I want to waltz back to nature again. 

Let us talk about rain. Rain is an excessively romanticised natural phenomenon in our thoughts, literature, and visual representations. 

Yet, for someone, who has no leak-proof roof over his/her head, rain is a horrible thing. 

There is nothing romantic about this planet or the human world. We create poetry with our minds, to ease the challenges, that’s all. And it is beautiful too until we confuse poetry with reality.  

Knowing this could make us more rooted in reality and maybe more compassionate towards our fellow creatures because now we know that all of us are brought up with the same indifference by Mother Nature, who is like a witch spinning on her wheel all the time, without bothering to see that the strands are entangled and a mess, as long as the cloth has its seams intact.