I do not necessarily believe that our species arose to fulfill some prefigured role in the biosphere, but there is a strange parsimony in nature which certainly acquires this implication.

What is clear, however, is that the circumstances we have awoken to complexly representational awareness within endow us with choices. Opportunities to select roles which will then guide our own development as a species, much as the selection of interests and vocations guides such development in a single human life.

As regards our place in the web of terrestrial life, we have a track record of horrifying failures, denials, and abuses. This is surprising, since, just as a member of a family cannot realistically pretend that the other members are simply there to be converted to functions, products, profits, entertainment, or dead terrain… so, too, it is impossible for the purportedly sapient member of a world of incredibly diverse living relationships to pretend that these comprise, essentially resources. Just as your own nervous system or eyes are not properly resources to be disposed of at whim, neither are the living beings and places of our world.

We are a strange animal; our minds give us access to dimensions which are powerful enough to invite all life on Earth into mutual exploration, growth, fulfillment and discovery. It is hard to imagine an animal with a mind so powerful that other animals -are changed by its proximity-, yet this is the nature of our own and other animalian minds on Earth. We must not attack the rungs of life upon which our own intelligence is raised high, thinking it is something we possess — for it is not. Like all experiences, context is everything, and our intelligence only thrives as a compassionate member of a world as diversely populated with other living beings and places as ours has been.

There are many fulfilling roles we could select, but foremost amongst them is that of a voice and a conservator. We are the voice of the living beings of our world. We can use that power to bury and silence them, converting them into convenience and waste by the kiloton-per-minute, or we can choose a role that ennobles and enriches our humanity and our health. We must learn to speak for and protect the other living beings and places of our world in every possible way, for in our generation they face threats more severe than any in history… and these threats are the results of our own ignorance and vapid entitlement to luxury at any cost.