Tarzan thinks about the nature of the jungle by Jon Ferguson
Tarzan wakes up in the jungle every morning between four and five o’clock. He loves the silence at such hours. One has only one’s mind to listen to. He often lies in bed for a half an hour and thinks about what he will write when he goes downstairs and turns on his modern computer. At such moments his mind bounces from subject to subject like a bee from flower to flower.
This morning he is reflecting on the nature of the jungle. This thought flashes across his consciousness like a neon sign in Tokyo or Times Square: IT HAS NO NATURE…IT HAS NO NATURE….To have a nature something must be a thing, and the jungle is not a thing. The jungle is constantly in flux. In fact, all the so-called “things” in the jungle are not things either because they too are always in flux. Hence, not only does the jungle have no nature, but also all the parts of the jungle have no nature. And as the jungle is nature and vice versa, nature has no nature.
Tarzan enjoys listening to present-day people pontificate about “the nature of man” and how “man is destroying nature”. But Tarzan thinks that man has always destroyed nature and nature has always destroyed man. Sometimes nature destroys mightily with ice ages, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, plagues, and such. And men fight wars, dig big holes in the earth, cut down forests, throw junk all over the place, and eat huge quantities of cows, chickens, fruits, and plants. But it is all a false dichotomy. Man and nature are not separate! Man is as much a part of nature as everything he eats and destroys and everything that eats or destroys him. All being is nature. Tarzan chuckles when people preach and pretend the contrary. Nature is everything that is. Nothing can know what everything is. Nothing can know the nature of nature. Man is that part of nature that has tried to think himself into being outside of nature. O error of errors! Any man who thinks he is not part of nature has certainly not thought through the problem of the nature of nature.
Tarzan’s jungle is what is…pure and simple. Nature. All of it. Being. All of it.
Every creature in the jungle experiences the jungle differently. What is is never the same for any two creatures. Every creature has its own perspective about what the jungle is…human beings included. One must understand this before one can talk about nature or the nature of nature. If, in fact, no two creatures experience existence in the same way, then no two creatures can ever share the same vision or sense of what the world – “nature” – is.
As Tarzan thinks about all this, his mind suddenly jumps to the beauty and mystery of Jane. She is the one creature with whom he can share all such thoughts. Naturally, he is a mystery to himself, just as Jane is a mystery to him and herself. Both Tarzan and Jane wander through the jungle knowing that the jungle is not a “thing” nor are they, the wanderers, things. All is in flux. Jane and Tarzan are fully conscious of the difficulties – even the impossibility – of talking about the nature of nature. Yet they both know that as long as they exist, they are condemned…to exist…to live…to be…
So, Tarzan wonders, where does love fit into the picture? He and Jane have talked about this. Up until they met, each always felt that something was missing in life. Existence had never felt complete. There had always been a hole in the world, always a space between the self and the rest of existence. When they met, that space was closed. The void was filled. The gap of solitude was bridged.
Yes, when Jane and Tarzan are together, both feel like nothing is missing. This, Tarzan thinks, is love. Love combats chaos. Love tames infinity.Love keeps one from losing one’s mind in the jungle where nature’s nature is an unfathomable mystery.