Excellence as Morality - Nature as Sculptor

The unfolding of activities throughout nature is a matrix that is pervasive, dominant, and infinite. Threats and rewards to phenomena are everywhere, hold sway over development, and are forever approaching.

Traits and characteristics of natural phenomena are rewarded if they can overcome the threats. Those that cannot are eliminated. The images in my mind as I write this are the differences between the cheetah and the leopard; plus the assured ultimate collision of the Earth with a sizeable comet or asteroid.

The cheetah has a longer, sleeker body than its feline cousin. It hunts for prey that is too fast for the leopard to ctch. Its flexibility is critical for it to veer and swerve in pursuit of its survival. The leopard relies more on brute strength. It finds security in taking ts prey up into a tree so that it doesn't have to defend itself against overwhelming numbers of poaching hyenas. Each life form has been sculpted into the very creature that can best survive within its niche.

The natural stresses that prevailed upon the common ancestor of the cheetah and leopard to precipitate the schism that produced these two successful variations can have a more sinister prospect. Looming is the thought that it is only a matter of time before a catastrophic collision between Earth and a heavenly body that will annihilate practically all life on Earth. Will humanity survive? Who's to say? But we could expand the probability of avoiding this threat if we occupied more than one planet. There is a space race of a different character now running. Can mankind successfully develop efficient means to populate other heavenly bodies to reduce the risk of extinction from a planetary collision?

The answer lies in the traits we possess today, the ones nature has rewarded throughout our history. We have been sculpted into the beings we are, just like the cheetah and the leopard. With all our variations. With all our strengths. With all our weaknesses. Our culture and technology. All that separates us as a biological entity from every other biological entity that has ever existed.

Yet nature doesn't use the hammer and chisel to accomplish this sculpting. It uses evolution.