The Rhythm of Nature

The Rhythm of Nature

The current social, ecological and energy crisis is, certainly, one of the most decisive historical events in human history and, for the first time, in the entire planet.
What some geologists have called the Anthropocene is perhaps one of the most complex eras in the entire history of the planet. Certainly not the most complex in terms of actual geological upheavals but certainly the most complex in terms of ecological and social connections.
Let us remember that the term Anthropocene was coined by the Dutch biologist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen. Crutzen introduced the term in the early 2000s to describe a new geological era characterized by the significant impact of human activities on the planet. According to Crutzen, human activities have become a dominant geological force, capable of profoundly altering the natural processes of the Earth, such as climate, biodiversity and the chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans.
Yet few reflect that this crisis is the result, among other components, of an altered human rhythm compared to Nature’s clock.
For over two centuries, starting from the first industrial revolution, it has been believed (and unfortunately still is for many) that to start an era of well-being and satisfaction of personal needs it was necessary to increase productivity, the creation of material goods, food, services, etc.
However, the consequences of this recent (historically) acceleration of the “rhythms” have caused the effects that the entire planet (with everything it contains) is experiencing.
The analysis on the merit of the causes involves the entire social, political and scientific sphere.
Obviously the solutions are often and unfortunately linked to particular vested interests; thus from the agri-food sector to the energy sector (to name the most decisive) the most disparate solutions are claimed: from innovative technologies, to genetics, to information technology, to artificial intelligence and so on.
In an era, still inappropriately materialistic, it is difficult to make economists and politicians, but also ordinary citizens, understand that we must look the other way. A way that is linked to the erroneous rhythm with which our civilization faces the events of its life.
A Kronos with which we mark rhythms very different from those in which Nature moves and progresses.
This discordance generates a diversity of forms and substances, which make up social ecosystems, very distant from ecological ones. A divergence, sufficient to compromise the necessary unity between the two systems which, in fact, cannot be separated.
We often do not reflect, among other things, that the passage of time (the Kronos) is a derived and not absolute dimension and, without bothering A. Eintsein, with his theory of relativity, it is known, even experimentally, how a mechanical chronometer is an instrument that is valid only in the conditions of entropy and speed at which we move in the ordinary conditions of our life.
Outside these contexts the pulsation of time changes, the space-time dimension expands or contracts.
In this new vision, space and time are not absolute parameters but relative, being conditioned by various factors such as the speed with which a subject moves and the ability of consciousness to interact with matter.
Similarly, space-time perception is not the same for all living beings.
Just think of the life of a hummingbird that, on average, can live 4 years, and that of a human being who, on average, is around 73 years.
In this case, according to the perception of the two living beings, does the man or the hummingbird live longer? A good question and an even more complicated answer. However, it is possible that the perception is identical; in short, it is not Krónos that gives us the absolute length but, once again using the ancient Greeks, the αἰών (aiṓn), in this case referring to the duration of a being’s life or, better yet, to the καιρός (kairos), that is, to the quality of the same.
Similarly, the life of some insects (such as the American Dolania) can be just a few minutes but, for them, the ticking of their cosmic clock does not work as it does for us.
Only in a condition outside of space-time does time itself lose meaning; the famous passage from the Bible applies to everyone: “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8). In a reality outside, times are perfect: never early, never late.
In our reality we can say that, in general, any violation of the rhythms of Nature generates degradation, loss of information and energy, precisely because the rhythms of Nature are inextricably linked to the laws of Physics that can neither be circumvented nor ignored.
You cannot go against the principles of thermodynamics without also violating those of economics, society and Politics.
You cannot make your cosmic clock oscillate at a speed greater than that which has been “assigned” to us, this is because we compromise the delicate balance of entropy and, with it, the space-time that has been “assigned” to us.
The moral of the story is that the imperative on which the modern society of consumption, capitalism, competition and the speeding up of rhythms is based, does not respond to any criterion of efficiency. It is a theorem derailed from the track of cosmic efficiency, the only one capable of giving true well-being to the Life of its inhabitants.
We are generating entropy beyond measure, wearing out matter and fuel (as happens to a normal internal combustion engine if we overrev it), losing efficiency, creating poverty and suffering.
A political ideology, to say the least, wicked, to which we must make corrections before it is too late.
As the writer Capra F. said in his 1996 book, entitled: The Web of Life, “our survival will depend on our degree of ecological competence, on our ability to understand the principles of ecology and to live in accordance with them”.
It is only in this direction that we can build social culture and political ideologies; everything else is an ancient legacy of a world that can never exist and that has already created so much poverty and pain.

Guido Bissanti