"...an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When a rock is lifted the earth is lighter, the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance as a whole. But we, in so far as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility."
[Ursula LeGuin, The Farthest Shore, p. 87]

When I read that, years ago, I thought that it might be the core reason the author wrote the Earthsea Trilogy -- to engage the reader and then get that point across. It rings as true now to me as it did then. I thought of it when I was having the discussion on astrology and reality mentioned in my previous entry... that it could be read as supporting the idea that the stars influence our lives based on their placement at our birth... but pretty clearly it is meant to be taken in the opposite way... that mankind is special, and so we are especially responsible for our own actions.

It would completely destroy the poetic expression to get into a discussion about how I think humans are only special by degree... individually and collaboratively we've come to a place where we can shape or even destroy the biosphere... but beavers build damns, apes use tools, birds drop seeds (and viruses) from far away... many, if not all species change the planet by their actions, often to the detriment of others... they just do it slowly and less effectively than humans. I don't believe that only humans are self-aware, have language, have a sense of time... I don't think we're very different from other animals with brains... far too many of our actions are instinctual, with a veneer of rationality. Biology and evolution are stronger in us than we like to admit -- almost none of us have much control over our bodies, and our bodies want sustenance, shelter, rest, and sex. We die quickly without the first three, and we are shaped by the fourth.

My SO is in a baby-wanting mode. Again. Even though we've discussed this and rejected it mutually and individually most of our lives. Nature will do almost anything, definitely including life-threatening things, to get us to reproduce. Incredible how strong, tricky, and irrational the urge is! I'm sure she's influenced by the fact the several ecologically minded friend-couples we knew, who also didn't want to add to this problem (looks like two or three more humans are being born than are dying, per second. I'm afraid nature will "correct for this" sometime relatively soon. One way, or another.) are having or have had babies.

Somehow this is related to my argument that, as individuals of a species which has coevolved with all the others, in general most of our daily individual acts in the world are small, localized, and have as little effect as any other species. But, hmmmm, when as a culture we mass produce and use leverage-multiplying tools like cars, pesticides, weapons, computers... there's something there, I just don't have the brain for it right now... something along the line of: whenever we use a tool which increases our strength/influence/leverage, we need to increase the thoughtfulness and care with which we approach that tool in proportion to its power. And something about how we have created and now use so many of these leverage-multiplying tools every day, far, far out of whack with being careful about them... "Sustainable power"? In the long run, I'm certain the ecosystem will repay our hubris. Gotta go read some Bucky Fuller...

-gs