Statistically, the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you'd think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.  We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.
	Even more astounding is our statistical improbability in physical terms. The normal, predictable state of matter throughout the universe is randomness, a relaxed sort of equilibrium, with atoms and their particles scattered around in an amorphous muddle. We, in brilliant contrast, are completely organized structures, squirming with information at every covalent bond. We make our living by catching electrons at the moment of their excitement by solar photons, swiping the energy released at the instant of each jump and storing it up in intricate loops for ourselves. We violate probability, by our nature. To be able to do this systemically, and in such wild varieties of form, from viruses to whales, is extremely unlikely; to have sustained the effort successfully for the several billion years of our existence, without drifting back into randomness, was nearly a mathematical impossibility. 
     - Lewis Thomas, The Lives Of A Cell

. . .

The rain falls
And the day wears on
The woods wait for me, and I wait to walk through them.
Caress them with my thoughts.
I want to disappear into those trees
Into that world, that reality.
That loving embrace.

In those woods, if the weak survived
To reproduce, and the strong and smart
Perished before their time
It would be a much different world.
A less beautiful world.

Nature is shaped by the will to live
The struggle to live
And in the process it
Celebrates life
As it cycles and recycles life.

The woods are waking from a winter’s sleep
Soon they’ll teem with life.
Peepers and all little beings
Competing and singing
Clambering over each other
To participate in the cycle
Of beings large and small
Competing to be a life
That survives to create new life.

Trees too
Their seeds sprout
Compete with other new life
For sunlight and water
For one more day of life.

Don’t mind the chaos
Creativity is chaos.
Nature isn’t what we want it to be
Nature lives by its own rules
Prerogatives
The endless search
To claim little bits of sun energy
And the cycles of water
In search of the ocean
Again.

The creative force of nature
Is chaotic, full of competition.
And destruction.
Of those things
Beautiful creatures are made.
-Journal notes

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