I’m a plant scientist and I want to be clear, but I am also a poet
and the world speaks to me in metaphor. When I speak of the gift of
berries, I do not mean that Fragaria virginiana has been up all night
making a present just for me, strategizing to find exactly what I’d like
on a summer morning. So far as we know, that does not happen, but as a scientist I am well aware of how little we do know. The plant has
in fact been up all night assembling little packets of sugar and seeds
and fragrance and color, because when it does so its evolutionary fitness is increased. When it is successful in enticing an animal such as
me to disperse its fruit, its genes for making yumminess are passed on
to ensuing generations with a higher frequency than those of the plant
whose berries were inferior. The berries made by the plant shape the
behaviors of the dispersers and have adaptive consequences.
What I mean of course is that our human relationship with strawberries is transformed by our choice of perspective. It is human perception that makes the world a gift. When we view the world this way,
strawberries and humans alike are transformed. The relationship of
gratitude and reciprocity thus developed can increase the evolutionary
fitness of both plant and animal. A species and a culture that treat the
natural world with respect and reciprocity will surely pass on genes
to ensuing generations with a higher frequency than the people who
destroy it. The stories we choose to shape our behaviors have adaptive
consequences.
Fool wrote