Re-thinking nature

Letter December 29, 2019
This is what will help us understand nature’s mystery that lies in its shadowy interiority

LAHORE: The relationship between modernity and nature lacks a moral ground as we live ‘in’ nature in order to ‘take’ from nature. Therefore, the rise of environmental problems and our efforts to solve them has blurred our philosophical relationship with nature. It is important to rethink worthiness of nature instead of exploiting it for personal gain. In other words, question nature’s shadowy interiority. This, in turn, points to the fact that nature loves to remain hidden. Nature represents a certain amount of resistance to change in order to remain in itself, similar to the concept of inertia. What we see and seek to control is merely on the surface. It is what lies underneath that we should be worried about. Therefore nature should be assessed in a dialogical manner, both as a worth in itself and as an impending ruin. This is what will help us understand nature’s mystery that lies in its shadowy interiority. It is important that we constantly rethink nature so that we are able to give it importance in the face of climate change.

Faryal Ahmed

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29th, 2019.

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