This was assigned as a follow-up to the last.

Humans are animals. We are from and of nature, having grown from Hunters and Gatherers into farmers, and then into an industrialized society. We have dominated the food chain, and are the biggest natural enemy to any other surviving species.

Instead of bright coloration or spines or armor plating, humans were slowly gifted with the ability to use tools. We were no longer limited to creation of the next generation, we could then create better tools, shelter, and so on. As our tools became more and more efficient at their task, we were able to design more and better and varied things. We learned to make plants that we could eat grow.

Now, the things that we have created seem at odds to nature. We belch toxic fumes and gases into the air. We dump our plastic trash into the water. Our concrete cities block out any green that might try to push up from the cracks. Our computers separate us as they bring us together. And yet, all of this is nature, because we, as humans, created it. And we are of nature, though we have worked around its laws and inadvertedly destroy its other incarnations.

Perhaps we have become nature’s self-destructive urge. No matter how plainly we are shown that our excesses and flippant attitudes will destroy us, we carry on. There is no longer a predator to fear; no longer a struggle for food. But we were not the first. It is only a matter of time until we either burn ourselves out, and start a new cycle in nature, or she gives us a new predator to fear.