Letter 4: We are Nature

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."

— Albert Einstein

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Dear Future Human,

I often ask people I engage with to share what is present for them—what they are feeling—before we dive into a deep and meaningful conversation or task.

Connecting to our feelings helps ground us in the moment and informs us of what we are bringing into that moment. I have the impulse to share with you my emotional state at this moment. I am feeling energized, conflicted, and a little anxious as I am connecting to where I need to begin. There’s always a bit of a struggle before I can bring myself to begin writing.

I have come to appreciate that much of the conflict and chaos we experience stem from our disconnection from nature. Modern humans have forgotten that we are not apart from Nature. We are Nature—an extension of its breath, its rhythms, its unbreakable will to create and sustain life. The trees are my lungs. If they didn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe—and if I stopped breathing, they would suffer too. We are not separate beings; we are inside each other. My inhalation is their exhalation. Their respiration, the miracle of photosynthesis, becomes the oxygen that fills my chest. We share a quiet exchange of breath that connects our lives in a deep, invisible way. Earth is your body. This is not just a metaphor—it’s true. Your body is made from its minerals, its waters, its decaying leaves, and infinite sunlight. Just like the earth, our bodies go through cycles—leaves fall and become soil, rain turns into rivers, and death gives way to new life. We compost and seed, stardust and clay. We live on a planet designed to sustain life—a planet that knows how to heal itself.^¹

In our striving to master the world, we mistook our tools for wisdom. We built cities and machines and digital realms, and in the process, we exiled ourselves from the living fabric that made us. Over time, we have become dis-membered and dis-connected, severing the intrinsic relationship we had with the natural world. In our blind arrogance, we lost our sense-abilities, our capacity to appreciate the intricate interdependent ecosystem of which we are a part. To reclaim this connection, we must re-collect our true nature and re-member that we are living organisms, governed by the same creative intelligence that has shaped life on earth for billions of years.

What follows is a remembering. A weaving back together of threads we have allowed to fray: the wisdom of the Earth, the intelligence of our bodies, and the deeper evolutionary dance we are meant to be a part of. If you are to find your way forward, it will not be through domination, but through reconnection—to Nature, to each other, and to the ancient, living intelligence that still stirs quietly within you.

Let us begin here.

We are part of 4.5 billion years of evolutionary wisdom, and Nature’s fundamental directive has always been to "create conditions conducive for life.”² This inherent will for life exists not only in the broader ecosystem, but also within us—woven into our biology, behaviors, and instincts, beyond our layers of cultural conditioning. When we recognize and align with this deep, universal intelligence, we reclaim our place as an integral part of Nature’s ongoing evolution.

Nothing in nature, least of all human nature, exists without reason. It’s far too tempting to be baffled or even disgusted by what looks, from the outside, like completely illogical behavior, and belief systems on the part of many of our fellows: people who treat their online avatars as more “real” than their flesh-and-blood selves; protesters who burn down their own neighborhoods in the name of justice; drivers who weave recklessly through rush hour traffic racing against some invisible clock.

Yet all these behaviors and beliefs are shaped by the same adaptive pressures that yield such an extraordinary—even whimsical—degree of beauty and strangeness like the ornate rituals of the bird-of-paradise or the chaotic migrations of locusts, are shaped by the same adaptive pressures that drive the rest of life.³ Beneath it all runs the same primal drives—the need to belong, to survive, to find meaning, to secure love or recognition in an unpredictable and overwhelming world.

What we call human nature, as baffling as it may appear, operates within a structured and lawful framework, though our understanding of this lawfulness remains lacking due to its vast complexities and our fragmented, limited knowledge. We are governed by the same biological wisdom, by the same mysterious life-imperatives, that govern all other living species on the planet. Human nature obeys, or rather expresses, the intelligence which runs through the rest of the natural world, which keeps every species locked in a high-stakes dance with their environment. However, this intelligence afforded us the brilliant capacity to change our environment faster than our brain’s capacity to adapt. The iterative nature of our brain’s evolution has brought us to a paradox: the youngest part of our brain—the prefrontal cortex—endows us with extraordinary capacities for abstract reasoning, long-term planning, and complex problem-solving. Yet the development of these very abilities outpaced the evolution of our much older, emotion-driven limbic system, rendering us less able to naturally adapt to our ever-changing environment.⁴ Our behavior therefore has its roots not simply in our deepest psychological selves, but in Nature’s dazzling, ever-unfolding and mysterious dialogue with itself. When we are not informed by that reality, we mistake symptoms for causes, and our efforts to fix our problems only entangle us further.

The phrase “survival of the fittest,” associated with Darwin’s groundbreaking ‘natural selection’ work, has been widely and mistakenly reduced to the strong survive and the weak perish.⁵

However, this was not his intended meaning. What he really meant was the organisms that are continually best able to adapt—to fit—their ever-changing environment are the ones that endure. In nature, survival isn’t just about domination; it’s about cooperation, resilience, and the ability to evolve in response to shifting conditions.⁶

A hundred and fifty years later, we still have not fully grasped or appreciated what “survival of the fittest” means in relation to our physical environments, as is evidenced by our ongoing exploitation, extraction, and degradation of the natural world. This principle not only applies to the physical realm but also extends to our complex social structures. In my time, people fail to recognize that we are not only struggling to adapt to our physical surroundings but also to fit within our social systems. Through my work as a psychotherapist, I have come to learn that many of the survival mechanisms, perceptions, learned behaviors, and coping strategies we develop in order to "fit" into our childhood environments often become the source of maladaptive behaviors in adulthood. What once helped us navigate early life later hinders our adult ability to thrive in personal growth, relationships, and work.⁷

Of course, each human, as each seed, arrives with their own innate DNA, temperament, talents and spiritual predisposition. These inherent traits interact with the ‘soil’—the world around us—ultimately shaping the way we develop. Two major factors contribute to the challenge of adapting as adults: First, the social environment a child grows up in and adapts to is significantly different from the social environment they encounter as adults. Second, the coping mechanisms and behaviors that were useful in childhood often become maladaptive when carried into adult social settings. This is not how evolution works for most of the other organisms, which adapt iteratively over generations. Adult organisms of other species typically live in essentially the same environment with the same rules and conditions as when they were young, making their adaptive responses more stable—and appropriate throughout their lifespan.

Not so for humans.

If our survival depends on our ability to continuously evolve to fit into our ever-changing surroundings, we need to develop a deeper understanding of how both our natural and social ecosystems affect us. While evolutionary biologists, neuroscientists, sociologists, and psychologists have been investigating this complex and multifaceted issue, the research has been compartmentalized—lacking the rigorous cooperation necessary to develop a unified model that pulls together the many moving threads impacting our evolutionary development. That would require self-awareness—an honest and courageous inquiry into our perceptions, roles, capacities, beliefs, and values—so that we can assess how well we align with the environments we live in today. However, we can only begin to explore our own “fitness” once we recognize that we are not separate from our environments—our species is deeply interwoven with everything and everyone around us.⁸

Consider how many of our perceptions and behaviors were formed in early childhood when we were truly vulnerable—physically, emotionally, and cognitively dependent on those around us for survival. To survive, we adapted to gain approval, acceptance, and safety, often at great personal cost. Neuroscience now reveals that two of the brain’s core priorities—efficiency and prediction—cause early experiences to form automatic patterns about how we think the world works.⁹ Many of these predictive models, while once necessary, remain locked in place long after they have outlived their usefulness. As a result, many of our young and outdated fears—such as a fear of conflict, rejection, or failure—continue to govern our decisions and reactions, even though we are now fully capable adults, equipped with far greater cognitive flexibility and physical autonomy than we once had.

For example, if you grew up in a household filled with conflict, you might have learned to escape into books and imagination. While this coping mechanism may have helped you avoid pain and fear in the moment, over time it can become a crutch—one that, in adulthood, leads you to avoid difficult conversations with your partner. Or maybe you found that humor eased tensions in your family, so you became the household jokester. Now as an adult, you may find yourself using humor in inappropriate moments—not as a means of connection, but as a defense mechanism to deflect feelings of insecurity rather than addressing them directly. Or perhaps you realized that throwing tantrums was the only way to get attention. So you may provoke a fight with your friend or partner—not because of whatever issue you claim to be angry about, but simply because you are feeling neglected. These adaptations, once vital to our early survival, embed as neurological patterns—invisibly shaping how we perceive, feel, and respond to the world, long after their original purpose has become obsolete. Recognizing these is the first step toward breaking free from their grip, which often leaves us more powerless, insecure, and disconnected from our many yet undiscovered gifts. I hope you now better understand that many of the survival strategies we developed, while essential for childhood survival, do not translate into adult fitness in an ever-evolving world.

I’m sharing this with you because I fear humanity didn’t realize in time how our early childhood adaptive perceptions—locked into us so young—were at the root of so many personal, interpersonal, and global conflicts. We didn’t realize that our ability to adapt extends not only to our natural ecosystem, but also to our social and global environments. We weren’t able to identify which inherited fears, habits, and assumptions were outdated—preventing us from consciously evolving new physical, emotional, and psychological patterns that would empower us to engage with each other and life in ways better aligned with reality. The defenses we developed to adapt to our social environment in childhood are not serving us in our adult social environment.

The latest advancements in neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary biology and biomimicry are beginning to give us great insights into how our minds and behaviors are shaped. These scientific discoveries reveal the mechanisms shaping both our personal struggles and our global crises. It behooves us to consciously internalize and apply this knowledge so that we can begin to respond and fit into our environment by intentionally evolving our brain. We now have access to incredible tools to aid this transformation. By the time you read this, I hope it will be clear where we may have fallen short, and that you’ll be able to carry forward the lessons with greater clarity, care, and wisdom. By drawing upon the technologies available to us, we could have studied and refined our own nature with the same rigor we applied to other biological systems. These fields offer insights into the invisible forces shaping our internal and external worlds, which may have helped us navigate the often-chaotic landscape of our thoughts, emotions, and conditioned responses. By uncovering the deeper laws governing our internal struggles, we could have finally addressed the unresolved pains, fears, conflicts, and narratives that kept us trapped in outdated behaviors, preventing us from fully experiencing life as it is.

We live on a planet designed to sustain life—a planet that knows how to heal itself. Within its 4.5 billion years of evolutionary wisdom lies a blueprint—not just for survival, but for flourishing. If we can learn from its natural intelligence and adapt accordingly, we too can evolve in ways that support our longevity, our harmony with nature, and each other.¹⁰

Given the wisdom of Nature, I believe we will always have the opportunity to embrace our species’ innate drive to sustain and continue life. I hope that you will learn from our mistakes. However, this process begins with humility—the willingness to recognize how we fit within the vast, wondrous web of life. This is not a simple invitation, but an urgent and necessary one. The ways we have adapted shape our perceptions, determining how we experience and interpret the world around us. But if you commit to understanding these influences, you can begin the process of re-membering—reintegrating your fragmented awareness and reconnecting with the deeper intelligence that has always been within you, guiding you home.

More soon,

Ronit

1. Reflections of Life, (RE) CONNECT - Feel A Deep Connection To Wild Places, April 2020

2. Janine Benyus, Life Has Learned to Create Conditions Conducive to Life, August 2020.

3. Our Planet, Birds of Paradise Exclusive Clip, Netflix, March 2019.

4. Mike Brooks, Humanity's Real Problem: Accelerating Evolutionary Mismatch, Psychology Today, April 2025.

5. National Geographic, Natural Selection, retrieved May 2025.

6. Biomimicry Institute, Nature’s Unifying Patterns, retrieved May 2025.

7. Carolyn Joyce, Defense Mechanisms, retrieved May 2025.

8. Fritjof Capra, Systems Theorist Fritjof Capra Explains Why We Can’t Address Our Societal Issues in Isolation, retrieved May 2025.

9. Lisa Feldman Barrett, The Predictive Brain, retrieved May 2025.

10. Maria Papova, Symbiosis and the Unself: Evolutionary Biologist Lynn Margulis on How Interbeing Shapes Life on Earth, retrieved May 2025.

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