The Thin End

Birds flock, fish school, bees swarm, but social being is more than simply sticking together.  Social groups enable specialisation and a sharing of abilities, and enhances ability, learning and creating new tricks. The more a group works together, the more effective they become as a team.  Chimpanzees learn from each other how to use stones to crack nuts, or sticks to get termites.  All around us we see cooperation and learning in nature.  Nature is inherently creative.  Pulling together becomes a rallying cry during a crisis.  We have heard it throughout the coronavirus pandemic.  "We are all in this together", a mantra that encourages people to adopt a common strategy. In an era of 'self-interest' and 'survival of the fittest,'  and 'selfish gene', we lose sight of the obvious conclusion from the evidence all around us.   Sticking together is more often the better approach.  This is valid for the lion as it is also for the wildebeest....

When you approach a plant or a tree, you would perhaps be surprised how much it senses your presence. This isn't surprising when you consider the intimate relationship between animal and plant life. The trees harness the sun's energy, and we scatter its seed.  When we take from our ecosystem, we must give something back. We could share our planet instead of assuming it was ours. Plundering our forests, laying waste with our concrete jungles, polluting our rivers and streams, making noise, a mountain of human detritus, like a scar on the landscape.  Imagine, while we are driven into lockdown by a virus we cannot see, imagine how the forest feels about us...now it takes a moment to breathe, and the silence allows the birds to fly free, imagine. There stood a tree in my childhood days And there grew grass under sunlight rays But where are these now so rare? Under the concrete lain so bare. My children will not know In the world in which they'll grow. They'll re...