All animals have evolved in landscapes to chase matter, to desire it, and often, to possess it. Landscapes are competitive, full of struggle and desire. But ecosystems consist of many landscapes together, co-existing in harmony.
So, on an individual level all living beings must deal with competition. But in those moments when we have time to appreciate it, we are able see the cooperation and interdependence of all the ecosystems, and of all the beings and landscapes around us.
I suspect that all creatures escape from their struggles for at least some periods of time, whether that be some one-celled amoeba who has found a warm pocket of water away from buffeting currents, or some bird who has flown back to its nesting area after feasting in the meadows all day. In every creature’s day there is time for some contented meditation that we might just call gratitude.
I remember last summer, grackles – hundreds of them, appearing to take some pleasure – schadenfreude – in the frustration of a pair of recently fledged red-tailed hawks trying to fend for themselves for the first time. The screeches of the hawks brought no relief from mom and dad, and no doubt kept the rodents in the vineyard below safely hidden in their burrows. The hawks sat on top of two telephone poles while the grackles crowded together on the wires to either side of them, taunting and even flying at them.
Wherever landscapes intersect, whether they belong to different species, different cultures, or even different individuals, an ecosystem may exist and new qualia will reveal itself. When I see little birds chasing big crows and raptors, I like to think that they ritualing with new qualia that, perhaps as of yet, they do not even know why.
But I, in my appreciative contemplation, looking out beyond my own, selfish landscape and appreciating theirs, I know why. They are playing, preparing, practicing for their upcoming war on humanity, when they will be faced, like David, with a great and terrible Goliath!
Yes, we will be in fierce competition with our fellow creatures soon enough if we don’t learn from ecosystems the need to cooperate with them once and for all. And remember, they have evolved to survive while we have to continually figure it out – reinventing the wheel, so to speak, or futility carrying our rocks uphill, like Sisyphus.