9,943,000: that's the number of deaths resulting from the ten worst natural disasters recorded in earth's history. In other words, nature seems almost unbendable to man. There is a constant debate on whether humans should bend to nature or nature should bend to humans. Unfortunately, the prior is true. Think of nature and the earth like a rubber band, every time we as people push its boundaries, the rubber band stretches, eventually snapping back into place with dire repercussions. Man can make its attempts to control the Earth but will surely never win the battle because of a number of factors. Many poets, often transcendentalists, explore this give and take relationship between man and nature, specifically in sections of Walt Whitman's song of myself. .
In the first section of Whitman's piece, he presents that "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." The passage suggests that all beings have equal claim to the Earth, and can do with it as they please. This is particularly important when considering how nature bends to us as humans. We pollute the air with toxins, consume mass amounts of resources, destroy environments for industrial expansion, and develop technology to elude natural laws. With cars and planes that conquer cross country distances, the harvesting of solar power or alternative resources, and decisive divvying up of land for possession, society believes we have conquered the Earth. These efforts, though valiant are in vain. Whitman hints this in some of his passages how nature and man should behave together. He goes on to say "I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, and the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps." What I interpreted from this passage was that humans experience a level of insignificance in which they go through a complex cycle of life and inevitable death.
