Alan S. Austin
Arizona Playwright • Writer • Poet
  

THE BEAUTY OF NATURE (3/14)

Watching scientists scrambling to uncover the secrets of the coronavirus, I was overcome by a sense of wonder about the world in which we live and how creative nature is. We congratulate ourselves for having developed the computer, while nature goes about its business creating opportunities for entirely different forms of life. Everything lives off something else. The whole system is amazingly flexible and interactive. A lot of it is cause and effect. Everything dovetails into something else which then affects something else. It's enormously complex and we little humans have to scurry into our laboratories to try to discover ways to defend ourselves. Divorce yourself from the fact that biologically the coronavirus appears focused on knocking out the old and infirm, it's no different to any other disease, just another opportunity. We die and decay and then become part of the creative process again. We are not designed to be entirely microbiologically resistant. We're temporary. Viruses are entitled to places to procreate. Aren't they? We give them the opportunity. As a human being, I can only wonder at the beauty and logic of nature, though selfishly mourn its consequences.