If asked, "Which version is better?" most people—and even AIs—would likely point to the crisper, tighter edit. Taken out of context, it is technically superior: clearer, more concise, and punchier. In fact, this polished version worked perfectly for this website's "About" page. But context is king. This text serves as a crucial transition in my upcoming book, bridging deep exploration with final conclusions. Readers have spent hours immersed in a specific narrative voice. In that context, as one insightful reader put it, the original "default" version resonates more deeply: "I personally prefer the first version, it sounds more colloquial and I can really hear you as if you’re talking to me…" This post explores why the "lesser" edit might be the right choice when preserving the author-reader connection is paramount. Below, compare the two versions yourself.

— default voice edit —

What Will We Do?

Now that you’ve got it—that the whole of nature is an enormously intelligent apparatus composed of interconnected living creatures, each with purposeful roles in the evolutionary biological, chemical, and geological processes of our living planet—what do we do? By "we," I don't mean our large societies, but rather us as individuals and families. Our large societies are lost. Western constructs have deliberately disconnected from the planet's tree of life, and many nation-states have either chosen to follow this Western path or have created rigid shells of control to maintain autonomy and resist Western colonialism. Ironically, even these resistant structures mirror the anti-nature trajectory, where human-centered survival, conflict, and control are the raison d'être of social order.

For starters, I don't claim to have the answers, only a bit more experience on a path of awareness. I know we modern humans aren't the first nor the only intelligence on Earth. I recognize that our inability—or unwillingness—to detect, align with, or communicate with the resources and responsibilities of the natural world brings our self-proclaimed intelligence into question. We hallucinate a world of artificial priorities and material things, declaring our skill in serving these constructs as proof of our unique intelligence. But from a non-modern human perspective, we are living in a dream—a dream with severe consequences for our living planet. We have destroyed the majority of large, surface-based life forms. We routinely pollute the ground, air, and much of the seas. With nuclear weapons, we have the capacity to reset planetary life almost as quickly and effectively as a major asteroid impact.

Yet, from a non-modern human perspective: so what? So what if we can wipe out life on the surface? Earth has seen this repeatedly—ice ages every hundred thousand years or so, catastrophic asteroid impacts, solar flares, mega-eruptions roughly every million years. Layers of life beneath the outer crust remain ready to rebuild. Nothing we can do keeps bacteria and archaea from being at the ready to lay groundwork for reconstructing geology, atmosphere, and small life forms, which in turn set the stage for the flourishing of new life.

It’s only from our modern human viewpoint that we seem to be anything more than a momentary disturbance in the vast and continuous unfolding of planet Earth and the greater creative churn of the solar and galactic systems.

So, back to the question: now that we know that we—collective modern humanity—aren’t "all that," what do we as individuals choose to do? The vast majority of us live our lives as parts serving the cogs of the modern human machine. Some of us are cogs, some maintain cogs, some are appointed overseers. But whether you're a boss-cog or a bottom-cog, you're serving a machine that may be no more than a collective hallucination.

So what should we do? What will we do? Let's think about that.


— crisper edit —

What Will We Do?

Now that you see it—that all nature is a vast, intelligent network of living beings, each fulfilling purposeful roles within Earth's biological, chemical, and geological processes—what do we do? Not "we" as societies, but "we" as individual families. Our grand human constructs are lost: Western systems built on chosen disconnection from Earth's tree of life, and other nations either mimicking this path or hardening shells of control to resist colonialism—yet still embracing the same anti-nature ethos where human-centered survival, conflict, and dominance define social order.

I offer no answers—only views from a path of awareness. We modern humans aren't Earth's first intelligence, nor its only one. Our inability to detect, align with, or commune with nature's wisdom questions our self-proclaimed brilliance. We hallucinate artificial priorities, then declare our service to these constructs proof of singular intelligence. From any non-modern-human perspective, we're dreaming.

Yes, this dream has consequences:
- We've extinguished most large surface-dwelling life
- We've operationally poisoned land, air, and seas
- With nuclear weapons, we can reset Earth's surface like an asteroid strike

Yet from nature's view: So what? Life's erasure is routine. Ice ages purge ecosystems every 100,000 years; asteroids, solar flares, and eruptions reset continents every million. Below the crust, bacteria and archaea wait—primed to rebuild geology, atmosphere, and life's foundation. We're a fleeting ripple in Earth's 4-billion-year story, a blink in the galaxy's churning creativity. If our unique superpower is an ability to end our chapter sooner, then nature says, "turn the page."

So—the question returns:
Knowing we're not "all that," what do we (as individuals) choose? Most serve cogs in the modern machine: some turn gears, some maintain them, some command their grinding. Boss-cog or bottom-cog, you sustain a mass hallucination.

What should we do?
What will we do?

Let's sit with that.