Nature Bats Last

If there is one duality I can embrace, it is the distinction between the world as it is in our heads and how it is, well, in the world, as it is naturally.

The greatest virtue or benefit of working with things, soil, steel, engines, or anything else in the world, is that it can teach the observant that the distinction is real and pernicious.

No matter how wedded we become to them, the world cares not about our ideas about how it is, or less yet, how it should be.  Many, however, fail to appreciate the distinction.  When things do not work "as they should" blame must be cast on enemies of one sort or another.

This is the life within our own heads and it is not real.  Maybe they reflect reality, maybe not.  The feedback we get is the result.  If an idea does not work, it is because the idea does not adequately reflect reality.

There will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.