Scientists examine 'why we do it.' Evolutionary biologists tell us our selfish genes exist to replicate. Others say the ultimate quest is for food. Darwin tells us that the struggle for existence has led to the production of the higher animals, which includes...us.

Now a new book (Why We Do It: Rethinking Sex and the Selfish Gene) tells us it's all economics, although, in this conception, economics means 'energy transfer and flow throughout an ecological system.'

Example: An elephant on the African savanna consumes huge quantities of grasses, absorbing the energy to live, which includes producing large piles of dung, which dung beetles turn into soil nutrients, which feed plants on which elephants graze. Nice system.

This sounds good, taken one step further, beyond ecology, it validates the idea that every being; man, rock, ocean, star is simply another manifestation of energy. All activity physical and mental, is 'transfer and flow.' So the things we do, the things we create, all of our activity, from the cradle to the grave and beyond, is an ever transforming flow of energy.

All of our intellectual and creative products (music, books, plays, paintings, architecture, etc.) are concentrated energies. They live and die, transform and flow.

That's a universe that I can live in. Mysterious, strange. Anything seems possible. We are not isolated individuals but manifestations of energy working to transform in a million different ways.