Reclaiming Awe: Finding Our Place in a Universe We Don't Control

How We Learned to Fear Nature

From the periphery, we see the patterns more clearly. We are positioned in a place that allows us to connect ideas that the mainstream often keeps separate, a role that comes with its own unique insights. One of the most profound connections to be made right now is the way we've come to view nature as "the Other." 🌳↔️👤

To truly understand this, we must first look at the concept of the Other as it was forged in existentialist thought. It's the moment when we realize we are not alone in the universe of consciousness; we are seen, and in being seen, we are defined. For Jean-Paul Sartre, this was a source of conflict. The look of the Other is what solidifies us in a moment, turning our fluid, infinite potential into a fixed object. It is a moment of alienation, and "hell is other people" because their freedom constantly threatens our own. 💥 Simone de Beauvoir extended this, arguing that societies, particularly patriarchal ones, have historically created a primary subject (man) and an eternal Other (woman), whose identity is defined only in relation to the male standard. ♀️On a more intimate level, we also create an internal Other—the version of ourselves we fear or the idealized version we relentlessly chase. The process of othering takes this internal, psychological dynamic and weaponizes it on a cultural scale, establishing a clean "us" versus "them" to build identity and, often, to justify a perceived superiority. 👑

Our relationship with nature is arguably the most pervasive and lasting example of this cultural othering. The roots of this worldview can be traced back to the foundational philosophical shift initiated by thinkers like René Descartes. His famous declaration, "I think, therefore I am," established the mind as something fundamentally separate from the physical body and the natural world. This was the birth of the Cartesian divide—a great chasm between our conscious, rational selves and everything else. 🧠➡️🌎 Nature was relegated to the realm of "matter," a grand, soulless machine to be dissected and understood through purely mechanical principles, an idea brilliantly foreshadowed by Archimedes and his mastery of levers and pulleys. ⚙️ Four hundred years of cultural conditioning, so deeply ingrained it's become part of our collective DNA, has taught us to see nature not as a partner, but as a resource, a puzzle, or an enemy. 🏞️➡️💰

This worldview is so powerful that when someone says to me, "But we are part of nature," my immediate, visceral response is, "As if it would be that easy." We tend to forget that our beliefs, norms, and habits have been shaped for centuries by a narrative of separation. This conditioning is the source of our deep and unspoken fear. 😨 It's the primal terror of the non-linear, the unpredictable, the uncontrollable. This fear is what drives our societal obsession with control—an attempt to impose our will and a linear order on a world that is inherently chaotic and non-compliant. We build dams to tame rivers, clear forests for agriculture, and pave over wetlands for development, all in the name of progress and certainty. Yet, in the face of natural disasters, disease, and the sheer unpredictability of ecological systems, this illusion of control shatters. 💔

This is where the profound sense of helplessness enters the narrative. The more we try to control nature, the more acutely we feel our lack of power when it inevitably defies our commands. The popular narrative of the "climate crisis" is so effective precisely because it reinforces our long-held fear of nature as a powerful, vengeful Other. It's a terrifying story that fits perfectly with our existing worldview, but it's one that only deepens the divide. This helplessness isn't just about massive ecological events; it's also personal and visceral. Consider our cultural fear of insects, particularly spiders. 🕷️ Most spiders pose no threat, yet our reaction is often one of unreasoning terror. This isn't a rational fear; it's a conditioned terror of the Other—the small, the uncontrollable, the unmanageable. Our unconscious goal, it seems, is a quiet insect genocide, an impossible task given nature's infinite complexity. 🚫🐛 And our "solutions," like quarantine or pesticides, are often short-term fixes that create new, unintended problems. We have created a situation we don't know how to manage, but instead of questioning our fundamental assumptions, we simply complain about the symptoms. We continue to destroy what we can, completely unaware of the long-term repercussions. 😥

These are the quiet stories from the edges, the ones that don't make the nightly news because they aren't sensational enough. They aren't about a looming catastrophe or a political battle; they're about the subtle, deeply ingrained patterns of thought that govern our lives. They are about the realization that until we can untangle ourselves from the idea of nature as an Other, we can never truly find our place within it. 🧭

But what happens when we lean into this feeling of helplessness, when we stop trying to control and instead begin to listen? 👂 This isn't a call to inaction, but a call to a different kind of action. We must start with a conscious effort to unlearn our conditioning. This could mean simple things, like pausing before swatting a spider, or more profound shifts, like re-evaluating our relationship with food and waste. The solution isn't about "managing" nature; it's about rejoining it. It's about moving from a linear perspective of command and control to a circular one of respect and reciprocity. The journey starts not with a new policy, but with a new thought—the radical idea that we are not the masters of a machine, but simply one thread in a vast, intricate tapestry. The true antidote to our fear isn't control; it's a return to awe, and an acceptance of our smallness in a universe that doesn't need our permission to exist. This is the ultimate path to inner sufficiency, because it frees us from the impossible burden of being in charge. 🙏