You know, I feel like every time I watch someone die, I gain a little better understanding of life itself.

你知道嗎，我覺得每當我看著一個人死去，我就會對生命本身有更好的理解。

Witnessing the dying process informs me of how I myself want to leave this world, should I be fortunate enough to have any say in the matter.

目睹死亡的過程讓我明白，如果我有幸在這件事上有發言權，我自己希望如何離開這個世界。

But I think it also reveals something deeper, something related to my place in the cosmos.

但我認為這也揭示了一些更深層次的東西，一些與我在宇宙中的位置有關的東西。

As it so happens, it was the height of the planting season when a lot of this was going on, so I often found myself out in the garden thinking about these things.

碰巧，當時正是播種的旺季，所以我經常發現自己在花園裡思考這些問題。

And that gave me some clarity on how I fit into the overall natural world.

這讓我對自己如何融入整個自然世界有了一些清晰的認識。

See, when I observe the plants and animals living and dying around me, I'm struck by the brutal nature of existence.

你看，當我觀察周圍生老病死的動植物時，我被生存的殘酷性所震撼。

Every last organism is struggling against all odds to survive and reproduce in a harsh environment.

每一個生物都在克服重重困難，在惡劣的環境中生存和繁衍。

And it'll do anything within its power to make that happen.

為了實現這一目標，它將不擇手段。

You won't find any lofty ideals of morality or justice out here.

在這裡，你找不到任何崇高的道德或正義理想。

It's might makes right, survival of the fittest.

強權即公理，適者生存。

The strong survive, and the weak are cold.

強者生存，弱者寒冷。

Life on this planet existed that way for billions of years before we came along.

在我們出現之前，這個星球上的生命已經以這種方式存在了數十億年。

So before we insert our human egos into the equation, I think we have to recognize these fairly uncontroversial facts about the savage nature of the biosphere.

是以，在我們把人類的自尊心強加於人之前，我認為我們必須認識到生物圈野蠻本性的這些相當無爭議的事實。

Now, the reason for caution here is that we humans have a terrible tendency to anthropomorphize other living things, especially other animals.

現在，需要謹慎的原因是，我們人類有一種將其他生物，尤其是其他動物擬人化的可怕傾向。

I don't think it's always a conscious decision, but it leads to some very strange logic that skews our perception of nature, because it creates this illusory hierarchy of worth or value that has no basis in the natural world.

我認為這並不總是一個有意識的決定，但它導致了一些非常奇怪的邏輯，歪曲了我們對自然的認知，因為它創造了這種虛幻的價值或價值等級，而這種等級在自然世界中是沒有依據的。

As humans, we ascribe subjective value to different organisms, because some are far more useful to us than others.

作為人類，我們賦予不同生物以主觀價值，因為有些生物對我們來說比其他生物有用得多。

But this has some unfortunate side effects.

但這也有一些不幸的副作用。

For instance, it's led us to focus nearly all our attention on the relatively small number of species that obviously benefit our civilization, while ignoring those that seem useless.

例如，它讓我們把幾乎所有的注意力都集中在數量相對較少的、明顯有益於我們文明的物種上，而忽略了那些看起來毫無用處的物種。

After all, why should we care about some bug that lives way out in the wilderness, far removed from any human settlement?

畢竟，我們為什麼要關心那些生活在遠離人類居住區的荒野中的小蟲子呢？

So we make these arbitrary and self-serving decisions about which organisms are worth saving and exploiting, and which are not.

是以，我們武斷而自私地決定哪些生物值得拯救和利用，哪些不值得。

And that's gotten us into a lot of trouble as we continue to destroy habitats and wipe an increasing number of species off the face of the planet.

這給我們帶來了很多麻煩，因為我們不斷破壞棲息地，讓越來越多的物種從地球上消失。

People are starting to realize that, hey, this bug in the forest was actually the lynch interactions and eliminating it had all these negative cascade effects that we didn't expect.

人們開始意識到，嘿，森林裡的這隻蟲子其實是私刑互動，消除它產生了我們意想不到的負面連帶效應。

The fact of the matter is that, even at this late hour, we still know very little about how the millions of species on earth are interacting with and affecting one another.

事實是，即使到了這個時候，我們對地球上數百萬物種之間的相互作用和相互影響仍然知之甚少。

Which makes it difficult to make any strong, scientifically objective claims about which organisms are important and which aren't.

這使得我們很難對哪些生物重要、哪些不重要做出科學客觀的有力論斷。

Therefore, a prudent approach might be to treat all organisms on an equal footing, even if they don't have feet.

是以，謹慎的做法可能是平等對待所有生物，即使它們沒有腳。

But what does all this mean for the garden?

但這一切對花園意味著什麼呢？

Since humans are at the top of the food chain, we hold great power over what lives and dies in the garden.

由於人類處於食物鏈的頂端，是以我們對花園裡的生老病死擁有極大的控制權。

Which means that at some point, every gardener must come to grips with being the judge, jury, and executioner.

這就意味著，每個園丁在某些時候都必須面對法官、陪審團和劊子手的角色。

When I started gardening again as an adult, I found myself hesitant to kill the insect pests that were attacking our plants.

當我成年後重新開始園藝工作時，我發現自己對殺死侵害我們植物的害蟲猶豫不決。

Hell, sometimes I even feel bad about pulling up weeds that worked hard to grow up big and strong.

見鬼，有時我甚至為拔掉那些辛辛苦苦長得又高又大的雜草而感到難過。

But at the end of the day, I'm a living organism with just as much evolutionary will to survive as the pests and the weeds.

但歸根結底，我也是一個有生命的有機體，和害蟲和雜草一樣，都有生存的進化意志。

So if it's me or them, I'm choosing me every time.

所以，如果是我或他們，我每次都會選擇我自己。

And I think that's perfectly natural.

我認為這很自然。

I mean, we all have to draw our own lines in the sand, right?

我的意思是，我們都必須在沙子上畫出自己的界線，對嗎？

Some of us hunt, some of us fish, some of us rip out a bunch of plants so that we can grow other ones in their place.

我們中的一些人打獵，一些人釣魚，一些人拔掉一些植物，以便在它們的位置上種植其他植物。

But the common denominator is that we're killing to survive.

但共同點是，我們為了生存而殺戮。

Which is something that our species has been doing for millions of years.

這是我們人類幾百萬年來一直在做的事情。

To feel guilty about that would be like trying to take the blame for the sun rising in the morning.

如果為此感到內疚，就好比要為早晨升起的太陽承擔責任一樣。

It's simply how life works.

生活就是這樣。

On this planet at least.

至少在這個星球上是這樣。

So why am I talking about all this?

那我為什麼要談這些呢？

Well, it occurred to me that if we really want to reconnect with nature, we gotta first understand how we fit into it.

我突然想到，如果我們真的想與大自然重新建立聯繫，我們必須首先了解我們是如何融入大自然的。

The problem is that modern society greatly obscures the myriad ways in which the natural environment is currently sustaining us.

問題在於，現代社會極大地掩蓋了目前自然環境支撐我們生存的無數方式。

Since the agricultural revolution some 12,000 years ago, the vast majority of humans have been subsistence farmers, so there wasn't any doubt about where the food was coming from.

自從約 1.2 萬年前的農業革命以來，絕大多數人類都是自給自足的農民，是以食物從何而來並不存在任何疑問。

Most people were directly interacting with plants and animals on a daily basis.

大多數人每天都直接與動植物打交道。

Of course, this is no longer the case in advanced societies.

當然，先進社會的情況已不再如此。

Efficiencies in modern agriculture have allowed the populace to remain largely oblivious about its own food supply.

現代農業的高效率使人們在很大程度上對自己的食物供應熟視無睹。

When you think about it, that's a fairly significant turning point.

仔細想想，這是一個相當重要的轉捩點。

We're some of the first people in all of human history to enjoy such a luxury.

我們是人類歷史上第一批享受到這種奢侈的人。

But it comes at the cost of isolating us from the killing floor.

但這樣做的代價是把我們與殺戮現場隔離開來。

We no longer have to see how the sausage is made, so we develop a warped sense of our place in all this.

我們不再需要看到香腸是如何製作出來的，是以我們對自己在這一切中的位置產生了扭曲的感覺。

And in the confusion, we attempt to apply the morals and values of our human societies to the natural world, which I believe is a mistake.

在混亂中，我們試圖將人類社會的道德和價值觀應用於自然世界，我認為這是一個錯誤。

Non-human animals aren't people, and we shouldn't treat them as such.

非人類動物不是人，我們不應該這樣對待它們。

Rather, we should make an effort to understand and respect the role that each organism plays within the ecosystem, including our own.

相反，我們應該努力理解和尊重每種生物在生態系統中扮演的角色，包括我們自己。