I find it somewhat puzzling.
Even though we in theory come from nature,
Most of our endeavor is in insulating ourselves from it as much as possible.
We crave freedom from nature and its restrictions and randomness,
And build ton loads of infrastructure to minimize direct contact and mediate.
We build:
shoes → to avoid touching the ground
clothes → to escape temperature, wind, exposure
houses → to avoid the wild field of sensory unpredictability
walls → to create zones where nature cannot enter
climate control → to flatten the volatility of the environment
cities → to replace nature with controlled artificiality
screens → to mediate reality through safe distance
cars → as moving capsules of insulation
hospitals → insulation from biological randomness
religions → insulation from metaphysical dread
civilization itself → an enormous buffering machine
Humanity’s entire project seems to be buffering, insulating, distancing, and filtering the raw world.
