Mutually Reinforcing Interdependence

"You should meditate often on the connection of all things in the universe and their relationship to each other.  In a way all things are interwoven and therefore have a family feeling for each other: one thing follows another in due order through the tension of movement, the common spirit inspiring them, and the unity of all being."
Marcus Aurelius, 160 CE, Meditations, Book Six, C 75, Translated by Martin Hammond

Stoics

Epircureans 

Interdependence and the Web of Life


 "How can we fret and stew sub specie aeternitatis - under the calm gaze of ancient Tao? The salt of the sea is in our blood; the calcium of the rocks is in our bones; the genes of ten thousand generations of stalwart progenitors are in our cells. The sun shines and we smile. The winds rage and we bend before them. The blossoms open and we rejoice.  Earth is our long home."
-  Stewart W. Holmes  


"A spiritual sensibility encourages us to see ourselves as part of the fundamental unity of all being.  If the thrust of the market ethos has been to foster a competitive individualism, a major thrust of many traditional religious and spiritual sensibilities has been to help us see our connection with all other human beings."
-  Michael Lerner  


"We are seeking another basic outlook: the world as an organization.  This would profoundly change the categories of our thinking and influence our practical attitudes.  We must envision the biosphere as a whole with mutually reinforcing or mutually destructive interdependencies."
-  Ludwig Von Bertalanffy