At the mercy of nature

I made a long journey by train here in Norway recently, and out of the window almost all I could see was wilderness, trees and more wilderness. I began thinking about how it is really nature that holds us all in its grip, and not we who harness and control nature. My country, at least, is more like a mass of wilderness with small patches of towns and cultivated land scattered around. At least that is what it felt like when I was sitting there looking out of the train window.

Often, especially when we are safely in our cities and towns, we can have a tendency to think that mankind is on top of everything, and that we have the power to control everything. But obviously we don't, and that is something many people all over the world have experienced recently. There have been floods in among other places Brazil, Sri Lanka and Australia. That is a blow to those of us who are too comfortable with our ability to stay on top of things, and the western world's power. When Australia, which is so much more developed than most of the countries who experience natural disasters, can have such devastating floods and forest fires (oh, don't say you don't remember those), are we any more safe?

In our fast-paced world, we often don't think about the power of the slow-moving forces of nature. If all the people of the world just suddenly disappeared today, nature would claim the places we have built up. Recently, actually while sitting on the train, I read the story of Machu Picchu. The magnificent town was just deserted by the people living there, and not destroyed at all by humans. But the jungle took over, and it took a long time before any humans found it again. It encouraged me to think of the inevitability of nature, and how the things we take for granted are only temporary.

Have you ever thought about how powerful water is? It can crumble mountains to dust and mould magnificent landscapes, for example the famous fjords here in Norway. It can destroy whole towns in just a little moment. But also, we are dependent on it for our survival, as we are approximately 70% water. Isn't it incredible that something that is so life-giving can also take so many lives?

So all the while we try to battle the forces of nature to keep it at bay, we should know that we are fighting a losing battle. I think that we should realise that taking on nature as our enemy is foolish, since we are living at its mercy. I think we should rather try to live more in harmony with nature, or at least listen to it and let it have its say in the things we do and build. I hope we can change the road we are headed down now, so that future generations can have better lives than what it looks like now.

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