Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.*****
From childhood's hour I have not been As others were — I have not seen As others saw — I could not bring My passions from a common spring — From the same source I have not taken My sorrow — I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone — And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone — Then — in my childhood — in the dawn Of a most stormy life — was drawn From ev'ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still — From the torrent, or the fountain — From the red cliff of the mountain — From the sun that 'round me roll'd In its autumn tint of gold — From the lightning in the sky As it pass'd me flying by — From the thunder, and the storm — And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view — . . . Edgar A.Poe R.I.P
The total character of the world, however, is in all eternity chaos--in the sense not of a lack of necessity but a lack of order, arrangement, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever names there are for our aesthetic anthropomorphisms...Let us beware of attributing to it heartlessness and unreason or their opposites: it is neither perfect nor beautiful, nor noble, nor does it wish to become any of these things; it does not by any means strive to imitate man... Let us beware of saying that there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is nobody who commands, nobody who obeys, nobody who trespasses... But when will we ever be done with our caution and care? When will all these shadows of God cease to darken our minds? When will we complete our de-deification of nature? When may we begin to "naturalize" humanity in terms of a pure, newly discovered, newly redeemed nature?
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say thay for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.******
How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature's universal throne; Her woods- her wilds- her mountains- the intense Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence!