The nature of nature - change

The term nature triggers something positive in most of us. We think of green hills, forests, mountains, lakes, meadows, birds, deer, foxes simply said everything that is outside the man-made cities and villages. We can also quickly come to the subject of natural selection, evolution and its ever-changing substance.

But nature does not keep on changing to finally reach a perfect state (even if many understand the theory of evolution that way). The evolution does not have the goal to produce the perfect creature or the perfect plant sometime.

The interesting and funny thing about nature is that it is both the framework construct and the individual parts of the whole at the same time. Nature is the change of seasons, like the adaptation that the trees lose their leaves in autumn. It is the leaf and the trunk of the tree, it is the fish and the water in the sea. Nature is the chaos and the order.

Yin and Yang

At Daoism nature is to be equated with the great Dao. Probably the best known symbol from Daoism is the Yin and Yang sign. Yin stands for the feminine while Yang stands for the masculine. It symbolizes chaos and order. It is a circle in which a white and a black fish swim after each other. There is a black dot in the head of the white fish and a white dot in the head of the black one. These dots represent order in chaos and chaos in order.

Nature, then, is both the order within which changes occur in a given framework and the framework itself.

Nature and the change

So nature does not simply manage evolution and lead it to a climax. By the change of the contents of the frame, just so the frame itself changes.

To express this a little more simply, let us use an example. Nature brings forth man after millions of years. This first of all had to bring forth a society or culture that enabled him to live a simpler life in this world. Because outside the settlements hunger as well as illness and predators were a permanent threat. So man first changed the framework of his existence by building safe zones. Over time, however, man changed the environment in such a way that new weather extremes began to occur. Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and tsunamis challenge mankind more and more often. Man must now respond to these changes once again.

Since man is nothing external, but part of nature, it is important to understand that there will always be changes in life. On the subject of change, we have already written a few articles on this blog. Here is a list of some of them:

• Alan Watts on the Inanimate: Why Change Matters
• Heraclitus: Why change is inevitable
• How we change reality: Seize the Momentum
• Why we want to change the world, but not ourselves
• Simone de Beauvoirs' Reminder: Change your life today!
• Taoism: Still Relevant Today (How It Can Improve Your Life)

Conclusion

In any case, there is nothing wrong with getting used to change. After all, not every change is something negative. Change also offers new opportunities and possibilities.

What are your experiences with the nature of nature? Have you already learned to deal with changes? If so, feel free to share your experiences in the comments.