Mankind

The cliff tumbling down to the sea in a series of ledges and steep loose rocks, the waves pounding the rhythmic immemorial pattern that has captivated generations in an hypnotic trance. The thought that it has been like this for thousands / millions of years puts our three score and ten into perspective. As we look, we involve our very being in the scene as if we are an integral part of what we observe. We convince ourselves that the world we observe is personal to us, and we arrange our thoughts to integrate everything we see with our emotions and desires. Of course "our" world is a concoction of our mind which its self, is a concoction of our memory and the trillions of images we have received over our lifetime to make sense of the world outside our head. Mankind is probably unique in extrapolating ideas about nature that are not the actual substance of nature. The ability to romanticize and mentally interact with what we see and hear is probably the greatest gift we have. It allows us to develop throughout our life as we add incrementally to the sense of who we feel we are, whilst at  the same time, because our minds are implicitly merged with our surroundings, we become technically schizophrenic, unable to come to terms with our short life span (70years) whilst acknowledging that this scene will continue to run and run without us