Feeding My Ignorance

It is only a few posts back that I asked (rather tongue-in-cheek) what was the purpose of spiders. Last night I watched a programme that - whilst not answering that question - did illuminate rather well the whole interconnectedness theme that permeates many of my posts in this blog. What is more, it also went beyond the focus that I tend to have - i.e. the way in which we are connected to others - to illustrate that this interconnectedness is really widespread across species.

...

So - in looking at "a year in the life of an oak tree" the programme threw up lots of things that I had never even considered and reminded me of many things that I knew - but were not at the front of my consciousness. Who would have thought that a plant can "fight off" predators? How many people know about the way gall wasps interact with an oak tree? You might say, why should I care, and that is a reasonable response - but this is a great illustration of the amazing ways that things are interconnected. Without gall wasps, we may not be able to still have copies of old documents like the Magna Carta.

The fact that this programme focused on a single year in the life of a single oak did not stop it from alluding to the fact that these trees have been around for a very long time - and, of course, each tree can live for hundreds of years and each one is itself an ecosystem in its own right. We sometimes, in a human centric way, lose sight of the fact that there are communities that exist - and thrive - with very little or no human input. We also forget that we are connected, inextricably, to these other communities in many ways.

Understanding just how the world works is something that many don't have time for - they are too busy being focused on living their own life. For me, this greater understanding is a way of literally putting myself in my place.