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Building Ecologies of Value
Wherever we go we form ecologies around us. As biological organisms, we need these structures and relationships to aid in survival, health and happiness. These are formed primarily in our environments and relationships. To phrase it in the vernacular: We grow based on the places we go and the people we meet.
There’s a balance in every ecology, one peg missing and the Jenga tower falls into disarray. At best it will lean and sway, nearly tipping at the slightest bump to the table. Humanity has proven this repeatedly by inviting invasive species into ecologies and disrupting them, demonstrating how carefully nature is balanced.
The mistake many of us make is to attempt “helping nature along,” arguably the reason for a lot of ecological and environmental decay is that we suspend the laws of nature. A fallacy which occurs even in economic settings.
Our personal environments can decay in this way also, in removing essential institutions and relationships, we shift into transient states, never really connecting to the places we live and the people around us. Becoming drifters and hobos in our homes and friendships.
In the age of the internet, this symptom is aggravated because it removes much of the motivation to interact with people different than ourselves. Most of us seek only the company which agrees with us, and even a…
