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Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.

How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect is my soul!
How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!
What is called good is perfect, and what is called sin is just as perfect;

The vegetables and minerals are all perfect…and the imponderable fluids are perfect;
Slowly and surely they have passed on to this, and slowly and surely they will yet pass on.

Oh my soul! if I realize you I have satisfaction,
Animals and vegetables! if I realize you I have satisfaction,
Laws of earth and air! if I realize you I have satisfaction.

I cannot define my satisfaction…yet it is so,
I cannot define my life…yet it is so.

I swear I see now that every thing has an eternal soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground…the weeds of the sea have…the animals.

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and the cohering is for it,
And all preparation is for it…and identity is for it…and life and death are for it.

—-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855)

“Extra-human, extra-natural terms divide us from compassion. We have a death-dealing capacity that is without parallel; and, having to a large extent disorganized the gradual, assimilated experience which bound man to place, we have thrown events not only into the hands of unpredictable change but into the unknown capacity of mankind to keep control without appalling tyranny. We are governed by our obsession with means. We have been treating the earth with a recklessness which is no tribute to human genius. The almost total poisoning of the natural environment is only being postponed by fragmentary efforts.

The great danger in a revolutionary world that takes us with it in spreading mobility, forced communication and unprecedented speed, uncertain of the outcome, is that we will take our own risks and live out our own violence as we can. In other words, we may risk the habitable earth for the sake of mere impetus. Perhaps the awareness of disaster will prevent us from bringing on our artificial ice age which could postpone spring for ten thousand years. Perhaps we can, by conscious, continual effort, keep turning the bow aside to save the ship. We will have to try, in this one world. We have come now to the point where we meet the living earth either in terms of fundamental conflict or fundamental cooperation. All our pillaging and presumption have brought us face to face with ultimate limits. We have pushed ourselves and the rest of life on earth to a point where one step more could mean survival or extinction.”

From John Hays - The Immortal Wilderness (1987)

“We put the whole animal kingdom down as being lower than ourselves, but their travels are flexible and they have minds which work according to rhythmic consistencies and recurrences of the earth. That’s about as deep as you can get.”

PRINCIPLE OF SUBOPTIMIZATION

The well-being of an element is dependent on the well-being of the system of which it is a part. It is sometimes necessary for an element to limit its goals and actions in order to preserve the well-being of the system. In acting to achieve its goals one element may come to constrain the actions of another element to the point of serious injury to the other element.