There is one struggle that all of everything that has ever lived faced. It is a struggle that we all continue to face. For the reader who is reading this book right now, let me tell you: we are at war. Nature, is at war. Conflicts continue to be waged on a micro-biological scale, and in larger forms than we have ever seen. And each war has countless little wars within it. Essentially, the Earth is a giant ball of toil and death that we call our home.

Life is made up completely of making alliances, betrayals, and acts of offense to achieve what we can to live. Utilitarianism dictates that life forms will act according to what brings them comfort or happiness, and that is true. To do that, somebody needs to loose. The Law of Conservation of Matter states that there must always be a balanced equation. So, naturally, there cannot be progress without a loss of some sort.

Now before I continue, I must adress who is winning this war. That is not an easy question to answer. It would appear that nobody wins, as if the object of life is simply to stay alive (as dictated by instinct), than no one could win because it is impossible to stay alive forever, presumably. So perhaps one can infer who is currently in the lead in this massive conflict we call life in some other way.

In terms of which species on this planet, including plants, animals, fungi, and the other three kingdoms of life, has the most of their kind, any given form of bacteria or insect would win, seeing as they can grow in numbers unmatchable by anything else. In terms of the percentage of a particular species across the cosmos, this is still the case. There are more organisms in the room in which you are currently sitting alone than there are humans on the entire planet. In terms of advanced species, however, human kind, the homosapien, is easily in the lead.

So how did this great conflict start? What prompted it? Why do we fight it? And most importantly, will any of the millions of species that we have identified through history be able to actually win. This last question I can answer right now: no, because the war of nature against nature is quite possibly the most beneficial conflict in history. All wars reek of death and loss, but that does not mean that the costs of any given war outweighs the benefits.

And, because we are so very, very small in this world that is constantly unfolding and exploding before us, just remember, of all the known species, we by far live the most comfortably. Lastly, anyone who states that humans are apart from nature because they can only destroy, just remember that destroying and building power and self-interest are literally the essence of nature and utilitarianism. Humans are merely the first to exploit this practice to large lengths.

At some point, roughly 3.8 billion years ago, life formed on Earth. Allow me to state that Earth is not a new planet; rather, Earth is an old planet. The universe is estimated to be roughly thirteen billion years old, while Earth is somewhere around age 4.5 billion years. To place that into perspective, Earth is just over one third the age of the universe. And yet, it is the only known planet in the cosmos that harbors life.

On that note, I think it appropriate to state that there is little possibility that life more advanced than human society today exists on other planets. Think of it this way: species need to evolve to survive, and as they evolve and progress through time, they become smarter and more fit to their environments. Life has existed on Earth for most of the time that Earth has existed, and only now are humans as advanced as we are today. Any alien species would need roughly the same time to evolve as we did to reach our level of intelligence, and as Earth is an old planet, any alien species would most likely be newer than any Earth species. This would indicate that alien specimen would have had less time to adapt and evolve than us here on Earth have, and thus they would be less intelligent (or at least at our level of intelligence).

This is only a theory, however, as, according to Pliny the Elder, one must acknowledge the only certainty is that nothing is certain. Therefore, life could progress and transform in any way apart from us and we would not even know. The dinosaurs, for example, were wiped out in a sudden event of destruction, resulting in the deaths of almost every life form on Earth. If that event had not occurred, one could only say where civilization would be right now. On the other side of the argument, the dinosaurs lived for three times longer than we, humans, live apart from them in time. Humans have been on this planet for a slim period of time compared to nearly every other type of species, and yet, we have achieved many times more than anything else in our short existence. My point is that life and evolution does not work in a straight, predictable line. While it is somewhat predictable, it moves in jumps and leaps when it can, and flatlines when there is no progress to be had.

And that is what all of life is, really, just a little luck. Humans simply happened to be placed into a landscape that caused us to evolve into what we are today, and we have been more resourceful with our gifts of nature than any other species has. Luck played a large part in the creation of life. Billions of years ago, carbon simply obeyed the laws of chemistry and reacted with the elements in a manner so proper as to create life. In the end, all life is a tool by which electrons and elements react and bond and explode. This does suggest that there is no meaning to life, but that is not the point of this book.

Now humans, humans are very fortunate because we have evolved to the point where the need for greater evolution seems unessesary at this point. A hummingbird, for example, may desire to drink the nectar from a flower that is curved, and over the generations, the hummingbird species will develop a curved beak to fit the shape of the flower and ingest the nectar.

Humans, on the other hand, are more apt to avoid succumbing to the same physical changes because a human would simply use their hands to manipulate the shape of whatever was stopping them from reaching food. As I stated before, humans are fortunate: we can manipulate objects around us with ease, while nearly every other life form cannot, for they have no hands, or no fingers, or no ability to stand taller on just two of their several limbs.

Humans have also developed language. We have learned to take incoherent sounds and create something meaningful out of them. It is truly incredible what can be accomplished with a few grunts and moans manipulated with precision. Other species, of course, can communicate as well, but none can do so as advanced as humans. Humanity is good at giving gifts to itself, that is for sure.

The takeaway from all of this is that humanity, though it may seem vulgar at times, is actually quite the achievement. Billions of years of evolution, adaptation, competition with other life forms and with ourselves, and we are today the most intelligent, most powerful species ever known. And yet, we also maintain much of our former primitive customs.

There are still many links we share with our more primitive animal counterparts. Many of these make much sense, such as the need to eat, sleep, drink, breathe, and so forth. Yet, others seem to be holding us back from achieving even greater societies than we already have.

With out intellect, one would think that we as humans would have learned by now that in a world that is so small, where each individual has intelligence higher than any other animal alive, we would simply treat each other kindly and with total respect - complete equality and sharing of goods. No, I am not a socialist, for socialism is impossible. This is because there are so many millions of ways and countless reasons for humans to hate each other, that full and total willing cooperation in any large task is ultimately impossible.

There is also the instinct of self preservation above all else, and for the most part this is a good thing, but it holds us back at times. For example, gun ownership. Perhaps if one lives in the middle of nowhere and needs to hunt to survive, or they are a soldier in an active war zone, they should be permitted a firearm. But in today’s day and age, when police and other law personnel are only a few clicks of a button away, why should anyone need a firearm? Granted, this is not completely our fault, rather, the instinct of one to go to the extremes to protect their self is still deeply encrypted within the human brain.

In the past, our primitive ancestors fought hand-to-hand over scraps of meat. Yet for hundreds of years, we have learned to communicate with and trust each other. Our instincts tend to get in the way of this trust. People are naturally drawn to power, and whoever has the largest weapon has that power. Granted, this is highly generalized, but I am trying to make a point through examples.

Humans, of course, specialize in killing themselves. We like killing ourselves so much that we give events in which they happen names (such as ‘the war of such and such’ or ‘the great such and such war’ and so forth). And we only give names to those things that are dear to us, and to keep important records of past events, that is if they are seen as important.

It is only natural that if one were to place ten people who have never had any lecturing on history onto a deserted island, they would eventually draw lines in the sand that separated themselves from others. The island would become ten sections of the same article of land, each with different names (assuming that none of the people at hand were killed or made alliances in this process).

Human law states that we will pretend that we follow a set of rules made by political law. But in moments of sheer panic, people ultimately resort to pure instinct. This has saved many lives, and it has also ended many. Overall, humans know how to wage war very well - we practice it on ourselves all the time. Of course, there is the other argument: the act of gathering power and influence in not, essentially - in the right situations - a poor choice of action.

In the middle ages, governments were run largely by nobility (as, the nobles, even if not in power themselves - which they often were - exerted much influence on the kings and queens they lived under). Disregarding the fallacy of the notion of “divine right” monarchial institutions, the system of government in which a handful of wealthy and learned people govern over the poor actually made sense for that time period. There could not have been a democratic system of government in that time, because the average person during that time could not read or write, let alone make political decisions. If peasants during the dark ages had been given secure voting powers, any country that did so would have surely collapsed.

Granted, in almost every instance, the kings and nobles abused their power. But even most of the the philosophers of the Enlightenment advocated for a system of government in which a small group of learned individuals had great power over the masses, as the masses were largely uneducated in political affairs. The same example can be applied in warfare. In war, we have generals that can see the whole of a conflict. The individual soldier only knows their specific area of combat very well, but it is the high-ranking leaders of that war that can see the whole map, and decide how everything plays out.

This is because, in these two examples, the common majority of individuals were too shortsighted to make the important decisions themselves. In such scenarios, it makes perfect sense that large amounts of power should be placed into the hands of certain, more-intelligent individuals. Today, this is harder to justify, seeing as in most developed nations, citizens are educated very well and at early ages. People today are far more capable of leading and making large decisions than in the past, rendering many still-utilized systems and rules of power rather pointless.

The youngest age one can run for the office of presidency in the United States of America, for example, is age thirty five. James Madison argued in favor of this when the rule was not yet decided on. He declared that a person of leadership, such as a senator, should be a certain age before they can take office. As he stated it, to be in a position of great leadership required “greater extent of information and stability of character...that the senator should have reached a period of life most likely to supply these advantages.” During the late 1700s, this view would make sense, as it would have typically taken one a very long time to complete a full education.

In the modern day, however, with education that is far more advanced than what society had back in the late eighteenth century, people can be much younger than age thirty five and still know more than a thirty five year old. The age limit of thirty five on the American presidency is outrageously outdated. Indeed, history has shown that people stick to senseless traditions for far too long. Nature conforms that this is but normal behavior.

As long as a system in any society works well for a period of time, it will be very long until that system is discarded, even if it is long outdated. Humans are held back by this law of basic instinctual (it would seem) conduct. Now, ignoring the obvious, how does the rest of nature fare? Well, actually, not all that different.

In the context of other species of Earth, one must wonder: can human exploitation of our beautiful world be in any way justified? There is not a clear answer to that question. Humans, like all other animals, must acquire the resources necessary for survival. And what we need for survival has changed over vast amounts of time. We have evolved for comfort, and we cannot go back. Inside our cages of bliss we are unstoppable, but place us outside our necessary coverings, we are vulnerable.

Humans need clothing to survive in the elements. Humans need shoes - our skin is not as hairy and our feet are not as enduring as they used to be. We need basic tools, such as pencils, paper, and computers, to effectively communicate with our fellow humans in this modern age of globalization. And there is only one way to get these materials: from the resources of our own Earth.

In doing so, we are stripping our beloved world of resources that took millions of years to create. We are basically slaughtering entire specimen as we cut down forests and expand our farms that we need to feed ourselves. Is all this necessary? Most of it is, unfortunately, at least for us. As horrible as it is to admit, if many of these sacrifices were not made, humanity could not survive in the numbers that we currently manifest.

It is simply natural for an animal - any animal - to exploit and take what they can from an environment with no regard to the damage that they are creating (take the threat of invasive species, for example). It is natural to abuse nature. But that does not mean that we cannot avoid being so destructive. The more we farm and drill and extract, the more excessive it becomes. We should be able to drive with the power of electricity, and thereby reduce the greenhouse effect and the melting of our icecaps. We should know by now what species to protect and which ones are too plentiful for a healthy ecosystem. And, for the most part, we do. However, convincing people to change their destructive behaviors when those behaviors are not needed is a cantankerous feat.

But surely it must be for the best, right? We are the most advanced species, after all. So, if a few creatures die along the way, we are still the priority. But the priority to whom? Ourselves. I highly doubt that any animal aside from humans would state that humans are the priority simply because we are the most advanced. All organisms ultimately fight for themselves above all others, and humans are no different. We do make efforts to save endangered species, and to halt global warming, but ultimately, in the face of uncertainty, human lives take precedence only to humans.

If other species of animals could have the same intelligence as us, they would think of themselves as the most important specimen on the planet. To a wolf, wolves must take precedence, to a bear, bears must take precedence. We as humans place ourselves above every other creature known to us because, in the end, we are the most intelligent, and we must remain so.

But why does the Earth need intelligence? Who actually benefits if we stay around instead of the millions of species we threaten (other than ourselves)? The only ones who declare that humans are above all else are, of course, humans. As a human, I share this view. I am appalled when we destroy nature, and when we kill things, humans or not, but I stand by the belief that we are most important. I eat meat, I own land that other animals may live on, and that is because I am human, and thus I see myself as important.

To object to this would be to object to one’s whole species. Our actions are only natural, even if many of them are wrong and should be avoided at all costs. This is why nature is at war: we cannot avoid it. All of life, all of humanity, is programmed for survival and to seek comfort, and we as humans try to break off from that and create a fair society. Millions have tried and failed, and we will always try and fail because we are a part of nature. We, just like every species that has ever existed, are all part of the same planet, and we are all part of one big ecosystem, one giant food chain, on that planet.

It is literally impossible to avoid following the laws of nature, no matter how flawed they become as society advances. This is because everything that we ever do, everything that we ever create, we do with chemistry, and chemistry is nature. We are made of the same table of elements and the same lists of chemicals that the rest of the universe is composed of, only in different combinations.

Humans are brutal, yes. However, humans do much of what they do because we feel that we have to. Who intentionally fights for a side that they do not support? Just like all other specimen, we take from nature what we want from it. We use it to make shelter, clothing, books, automobiles, furniture, instruments…But not without great cost.

The Earth, unlike any other observable planet, has quite diverse biomes and environments. There are planets in our solar system and beyond, but they are more or less all of one environment. Some are all deserts, others are simply rocky balls of ice. But here on Earth, there are deserts and tundras in one world. (However, as a desert is defined as an area of land that receives only two inches of rainfall or less each year, tundras would qualify as deserts).

Earth is the perfect battlefield. It has every type of environment needed to support a heavily-diverse range of specimen. And all of those specimen, which are built to survive in their own environments, interact with ones of their own. A reticular python, for example, may fare well surviving in jungles, but in a tundra, an organism such as itself would never survive. A seal may fare well in the polar regions, but never so would it last in a hot desert.

Humans are the only animals fortunate enough to have traveled the world so many times that we know how to survive in a diverse form of biomes. Where any other given mammal would take centuries to evolve to grow a thick coat of fur in the tundra, humans can simply put on a few coats and other articles of cold-weather clothing. Then there is the opposite: many mammals need to shed fur slowly in times of intense heat, but humans can easily remove layers of clothing or construct shade for themselves.

Anyone who asserts that humans are apart from nature is once again wrong. Humans are not apart from it; rather, we as humans have learned to use nature more effectively than any other organism. Where another animal may wander barren fields to find shelter, a human will craft a shovel with whatever materials are available and dig themselves a hole in the ground. Where two savage animals may come to killing each other over a scrap of food that both of them long for, humans will communicate and reach terms on how to share the food.

On that note, that is another advantage that we humans have in this war of nature: we are by far the best at crafting alliances. We befriend our fellow humans, of course, and yet we have also befriended many other animals over the years. We have domesticated dogs, pigs, cows, sheep, goats, and even many unusual, non-beneficial animals as pets. Yes, in many cases the animal does not benefit, such as a cow raised for slaughter, and that is the opposite thing that we are also very good at: betrayal.

We are good at keeping promises only until we break them. That is the deal. “I will care for you,” a human may say to a pig. “But as soon as I am hungry, or you become a nuisance, I will kill you and eat you!” And yet, even though our natural desires are so simple, we cannot stop inventing ways to kill each other and other organisms of nature.

Occasionally, mother nature tosses her hat into the ring. In those instances, the third party of politics, the unanticipated guest, the impossible lottery, makes its move. I am talking about natural disasters; those catastrophic events that we unfortunate living organisms have little ability to create or destroy.

In comes the hurricane, or the sandstorm, or the blizzard, to slap the chess pieces from the board and watch us fumble around as we come to our senses. These moments come to both destroy the other players, and to even the scoreboard. For truly, if one army is losing to another, a thunderstorm on the battlefield may provide them with the time they need to retreat, or construct stronger defenses in anticipation of their advancing foes.

Famines, droughts, pandemics…They all represent moments in which most of the soldiers stop and try to regain their balance. They do not occur often, but when they do, they remind us that Earth can inflict casualties if it wants to. And what’s more, it tends to result in greater cooperation among those that it effects.

When a natural disaster of great magnitude strikes, the human race in the effected area typically gathers itself together, and, tossing differences aside, works together to solve the crisis. At least, this is how it usually and ideally should work. In fact, this can be seen in all manners of disasters.

All great conflicts and tragedies do carry a benefit of some sort, it would seem. The First World War, for example, was a horrific event of history that saw the deaths of millions. And yet, at the conclusion of this great conflict, untold numbers of factories and cooperations that had been pumping out resources for the struggle could now turn to a civilian theatre. Because things were being produced in mass for the war effort, once the Great War ended, there was a new rush of innovations and machines to make life better for the average citizen. (Granted, the Great Depression of the 1930s would follow, but there is no such thing as progress without setback).

Then take the United Nations, for instance. If the nations of the world were not getting into occasional conflicts of various magnitudes, and if not for the tragedy of World War Two, this great organization would not have come about. Because it exists, as I write this book now, we live in the most peaceful and prosperous era ever in the entirety of history. It may be hard to believe that after watching the news and so forth, but as I write this, we are the most privileged of any others who have come before us, and we are generally getting better.

The United Nations also lends aid in the event of natural disasters: pandemics, famines, hurricanes, floods…And it lends aid in human-caused tragedies: oil spills, endangerment of specimen, genocides…If not for the tragedy of warfare, all of these grand benefits provided by the United Nations would not have become a reality. Other events of tragedy have yielded some unanticipated benefits as well. And although many if not all of these instances would have been better off not occurring, they did at least carry that simple yield.

The shock of the Holocaust led to the creation of the human rights doctrines. The tragedy of the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic yielded greater safety precautions for sea travel. The studies that led to the nuclear bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened the door to the benefits of nuclear power. Once more I would like to affirm that these events were horrible atrocities that should never have occurred, and that the benefits of them occurring were simply unintended yet unavoidable side effects of the horror.

In this way, in the way that destruction’s wake is progress, humankind can be merciful. Nature is merciless, but humans can be merciful. Our ability to communicate, and to reason, sets us in some ways apart from the lore and rabble of the uneducated and unreasoned masses of the rest of nature’s specimen. We may not be apart from nature, but we can define our own little segment in the grand whole of the shape.

Of course, all of life has ever lived on the tectonic plates, drifting over the hot mantle of the Earth. As you read this, magma is drifting beneath your feet. Our world is an eggshell, inside which is boiling magma. Everything we have ever done we have achieved on this little ball of concealed fire. We have build civilizations here on Earth like we think they can actually last forever.

It has always made me wonder: does the fact that humans are the only animal capable of knowing just how small we really are make us more inclined to violence, or more opposed to it? On the one hand, to acknowledge that, relative to the greater universe, we are insignificant, would be to normalize death and destruction. “If we are so small, then surely we must die small deaths,” one may say. On the other hand, to view our lives as small and insignificant would be to say that life is too short for death, and that we are above it. We just seem unable to make up our mind.

Every species fights the war of nature. Do we, all of everything alive here on Earth, hate nature? Or do we simply take what we want from it and leave the rest for others? For some reason, humans seem to see the circle of life as a line, and a line that leads straight to them. But, in reality, no matter what happens on this Earth of ours, the fact remains that it is simply a rock in space. And no matter what we did on it or to it, after all of us are dead and gone, it will still be a rock.

The war on nature cannot be won, it can only be survived for as long as possible. Yet, even as veterans and soldiers die, day by day, their legacies are still contributing to that great conflict, if only for a little while. It does not matter if that legacy is a brilliant book or a rotting corpse in the ground. The book will raise new minds and the corpse will decompose and raise new trees. Nature’s war is the only war where the dead have a say.

This conflict is not only necessary for survival, but it is purely nature. Regardless if there is any meaning to it or not, it will happen because nature is a part of all of us. And as long as we are made of chemicals it will always be a part of us. This could be interpreted both with thankfulness and with spite, but it is the truth nonetheless.

Humankind, in my opinion, is the most impressive thing the universe has ever seen. And yet, we are merely another generation of soldiers fighting this eternal struggle we call life and nature. “Peace” does not exist, it is only the word we attribute to the periods of inactivity between humankind’s horrific, modern wars against itself. If we take the words of John Stuart Mill to the extremes, everything that lives does what it does for itself.

Humanity sees itself as a whole, for the most part, thus, whatever benefits some group of humans should theoretically be a reason for all of us to cheer. However, history has shown that we are extremely complicated, and every now and then, nature likes to throw us a joker card. Nothing can live without consuming, destroying, or harming, but in nature’s war, this is not such a bad thing.