I've mentioned Jim and his newsletter before. He lives in Mexico and has an extraordinary website with tons of naturalist articles, stories and photos. The following was in this week's e-newsletter and I thought some of you might find it interesting:

BEAUTY OF THE SIXTH MIRACLE OF NATURE

It's typical for seemingly unrelated pieces of
information to start trains of thought that may linger
in me for days before an insight blossoms. That
happened this week when Jarvis in North Carolina wrote
to me about a study showing that ever fewer people in
North America are visiting parks, hiking, hunting and
fishing, while computer games and other electronic
media appear to fill the void. Then I heard a BBC
shortwave program referring to another study
concluding that our consumer society encourages young
people to judge themselves according to the clothing
they wear and what they own, resulting in many young
people developing bad self-images. Finally Bea in
Ontario wrote about recognizing the wrong-headedness
of many of our traditions and institutions, but
fearing that if she rears her child according to her
insights the kid may suffer from being so different
from her peers.

The insight I finally came up with is this: One
feature uniting the above three situations is that
they all offer opportunities to participate in the
actualization of the Sixth Miracle of Nature.

First, it's to be expected that most people would be
more attracted to electronic media than to the
biological world. That's because electronic media are
configured to be human-centered while Nature treats us
as just one tiny element of an enormously complex web
of interdependent parts. If you're insecure, the right
computer game can convince you that you're a hero. If
your hormones are raging, porn can relieve the
pressure. Nature, in contrast, doesn't reward self-
delusional and self-gratifying behavior, and typically
even punishes it.

Similarly, nothing is more human than consumerism.
It's what humans have done since the dawn of humanity,
hunting and gathering, trying to possess. Our genes
program us to consume.

With regard to traditions and societies, remember that
they are in place because they've survived long
periods of being tested in a Darwinian manner.
Traditional behavior has survived while untold numbers
of novel ideas and untraditional behaviors have gone
extinct. In the past it was sustainable to do what
always had been done, and what everyone else was
doing.

And yet, intuitively we all know that in the long run
outdoor people are happier and healthier than those
who root themselves behind TVs and computers. We know
that long-term happiness arises from other than great
material wealth, and we know that today our
conservative traditions such as "blind faith in
authority" are causing untold grief as we fail to
adapt to the fast-changing world around us.

Years ago in this Newsletter I wrote about "The Six
Miracles of Nature," which remains online at
http://www.backyardnature.net/j/o/6miracle.htm

The Sixth Miracle of Nature manifests itself when mere
consciousness of the kind a clam or mouse might have
evolves into an ability to learn and to reflect. While
the first five miracles, such as "something coming out
of nothing," happened long ago, the Sixth Miracle is
flickering into existence right now.

Whenever any human struggles with existential problems
and adapts his or her behavior to resulting insights,
that's the Sixth Miracle actualizing right now. That's
humanity right now advancing toward spiritual
maturity.

When anyone glimpsing the superficiality of electronic
media gets up, goes outside and takes a walk to "get
it together," it's a miracle.

When anyone walks away from a well-paying job in order
to do work fulfilling to him or her, it's a miracle.

When a family orients itself toward a spiritual ideal
despite knowing what it means to fall out of step with
the surrounding community, it's a miracle.