We have lungs that mirror the branching of trees. Our thumbprints echo the circles of age on an ancient tree stump. Our veins resemble the tributaries of a river and the veins of a leaf. Our circadian rhythms follow the waxing and waning of our days and the seasons.  

We are made from the same material and are bound by the same cycles as every other form of life. We are not separate but an expression of Nature herself. Which means we too must have a purpose, a role to play, even if we have strayed from it. What’s my purpose? What am I here for? 

I’ve thought long and hard about our human purpose on Earth and have had some big conversations about this question. Every other species contributes effortlessly, intuitively and perfectly to create the equilibrium of life. From the earthworm who turns fertile soil to support life beneath the ground to the beaver who slows the rivers, birthing rich wetlands that foster biodiversity, to the bee whose pollination sustains entire food chains. To the fungi as they decompose fallen matter, returning it to the soil and nourishing the forest floor, ready for the earthworm to play his part in the cycle all over again.

Each organism plays a vital, irreplaceable role in the great pattern of the whole. But we appear to be the only species that takes without giving back and the only one that generates waste no other organism can metabolise. Even in our most basic exchange with Nature, when we are gifted our life force of oxygen by the trees, we return carbon dioxide in excess, exhaling what Earth cannot absorb quickly enough. We pave over habitats, poison waterways, pollute the air and destabilise the climate as we disrupt the delicate feedback loops that countless other species strive to maintain with their purposeful contributions. Where they work in service of the whole, our aim is usually to extract,  forgetting that we are a part of – and not apart from – the very system that sustains us.  

We selfishly prioritise personal gain over collective wellbeing as we act individually in a system that depends on relationships and as we make decisions that benefit the now at the expense of the future.  We are unbelievably short-sighted in a world that requires our deep-time vision. And perhaps the most sobering truth of all is that if humans were to vanish tomorrow, Nature would bounce back and recover. Forests would regrow. Air and water would purify. But if, in contrast, the bees disappeared, or the fungi, or the coral reefs, or the wolves, the ripple effects would be seismic as ecosystems unravelled –  collapsing food webs, disrupting the structures that keep life sustained, endangering countless lifeforms, ourselves included.

Yet the very fact that we can reflect on this, that we ask these deep questions at all, reveals a deeper truth. Some say we are Nature made conscious – a thought that invites both humility and responsibility. 

Sometimes I find myself awestruck by the sheer improbability of it all: that for all we currently know, life, in all its splendour and complexity, may have only happened here on Earth. That across the vast  silence of the universe, this blue-green planet may be the single flicker of consciousness. If that’s true, then the weight of our responsibility is almost unbearable.

It makes me want to shout our privilege of existence from rooftops while also wanting to shake people into realising that we could destroy, in a few short centuries, the only instance of life the cosmos has ever known. It is a thought that is both humbling and mind-blowing. Because if we truly are Nature made conscious, then our role is not to dominate life but to safeguard it and ensure that this absolute miracle of life endures. 

In many ways, it’s clear that humanity today stands at the threshold of adulthood. As I raise teenagers, I see the parallels everywhere. Like them, as a species we are brimming with raw intelligence and immense creativity, yet we push limits, seek identity and ignore consequences. We resist restraint, ignore the wisdom of elders and largely assume someone else will clean up the mess we’ve made. 

On the evolutionary timeline, Homo sapiens, at only about 300,000 years old, is still remarkably young, a blink in life on Earth’s 3.7-billion-year history. No wonder we find ourselves grappling with the consequences of our young power. But adolescence is only a phase – a messy, necessary stage on the way towards maturity. And like the human teenagers that we are, we take longer to mature than almost any other species on Earth. In the natural world, most animals gain independence shortly after birth. But humans stay close to their  parents – and their wider kinship networks – for years, sometimes  decades. We are biologically wired to require guidance, learning and care over a prolonged period. 

So, it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that we find ourselves at this watershed moment of a collective global rite of passage manifesting as a planetary crisis, that calls us to learn the wisdom of what it means to be in right relationship with power, freedom and responsibility. And how we need to wield these powers in service of life. Like any teenager standing on the cusp of adulthood, we need the guidance, mentorship and care of our elders to mature into conscious, responsible participants in life.