From the moment we are born, we have an innate desire to discover. This craving challenges us from the very beginning. As we grow up, that desire to discover is nurtured with inquisition and continues to grow within us through the years. That is when the questions of where we come from and who we are begin to germinate in our minds. We hold a particular attraction to the unknown, the things that challenge us, the things we don’t quite understand because they are so much greater than us.

Nature has existed in this planet far before us; it is something from which we come from, something that in many ways – we simply don’t understand. It is what fills our lungs with oxygen, what provides us with the essentials we need to survive; yet, we want to live on the land and not with it. As Bill McKibben said, “we feel it our privilege, and a necessity, to dominate nature to our advantage.” But the question lies on why we feel that we have the power to dominate it, what makes us think that we are superior to nature? We call this planet our home, but in reality we are its guests.

As more technologies and innovations are created, we continuously attempt to fight nature and fail to recognize that we are part of it. What will humans invent when the ozone layer is gone because of human industry? What will humans invent when we find ourselves depleted from oxygen because of deforestation? What will humans invent when we go through all of our natural, nonrenewable resources? What will humans invent when life on earth is no longer possible? To put it simply, the end of nature is the end of humanity, and there is nothing we can do about this. We are like a rebellious child, attempting to go against and distant itself from his parents; nevertheless, he will always be their son. It doesn’t matter how much we try to change and separate ourselves from it, everything is and will always be fundamentally part of nature.

We wanted to discover nature, understand it, and now that -to a certain extent we have- it has lost its appeal, it no longer challenges us. We have forgotten or chosen to ignore the extent to which nature is part of our own identity. We have turned against the very thing that allows our existence in the first place, become too arrogant of our abilities and powerful minds. In the words of Bill Mckibben, “The momentum behind our impulse to control nature may be too strong to stop. But the likelihood of defeat is not an excuse to avoid trying.”