For the first time ever in our history, we pose the crucial problem of the relationship between life and humankind as a dichotomy that we have not been able to settle or, what is even worse, where they appear more and more distant from each other.

Is such a dichotomy just apparent, circumstantial? Or it is instead evident and substantial? Does it touch the very essence of existence, including our lives in this paradise – which is being manipulated and mistreated - that is called Earth? From what reference points or subjective perspectives are we going to face this issue?

Let's pose this question because, perhaps, the only thing that makes sense today is precisely this - to pose the question:

The growth of human population and its ever greater pressure on the ecosystem... are the implied expectations, needs and demands compatible? Or are they antagonistic with the very continuity of life?

Then, is the Earth, at this time, a hospitable territory or should we consider it hostile to the majority, if not to all living beings, including humankind? Should the latter be the case, how and why have we reached this state? Are we reacting?

Can we pose now some questions to give –or not to give- ourselves the needed answers, however subjective and simple they may be, with or without stubborn human certainty?

Should we question ourselves about almost every vital thing as we already do: what a living being are you, to which kingdom and group do you belong? Are you from the sea, from above or from below the earth? And then to answer, with a good deal of approximation, how many years still remain for us as a species?

What is the balance between generation and degeneration; between recomposition and vital decomposition? Are we maintaining such a balance? Have we altered it? Are we destroying it irremediably?

Is life a quantitative total or does it also include its variables, where diversity has a value that needs to be defined and defended?

How does humankind and its activity contribute to securing our life on Earth? Is such a question serious? Ridiculous? Comical? Or dramatic?

What role do technology and biotechnology have in the improvement -or the worsening- of earthly life? Is it a dynamic phenomenon with its natural compensations, or is it instead just out of "control", destroying the balance?

Have we built an inventory of the missing genotypes? After all, are we interested? Has it interested us at some point in our history?

As regards humankind, let us face some questions: how many modes, cultures and models of existence have disappeared over the last 200 years? How much time is left before each indigenous people -who barely survive- disappear in spite of their natural wealth and harmony with the environment?

Let’s take a step further, now towards our narrow environment and its most recognisable micro-environment: the modern city.

Does the historical concept of state, nation, country and language make sense in modern times when you can circumnavigate the world in something like 72 hours? If the answer were yes, why? What is sought or defended?

From another perspective, are we citizens of a country, of a city or are we instead already without confines in the Earth as earthlings? Are we a hybrid, a paradoxical combination of such contradictory identities?

Is the cosmopolitan city, cemented and dependent, a separate unit from the rest, from the entangled ragame, from the Earth?

Is there a positive, neutral or negative relationship between unbridled consumption and symbiotic coexistence with millions of variables in an ecosystem?

If it is said that resources are limited... are we restricting ourselves in their use, in their consumption? Or do we simply talk about concerns when it is chic to admit that we are "scared" by their evident exhaustion?

Is there still a common space? A space in which living beings, as a whole, have the same rights, or rather, the same possibilities of existence, which are naturally determined?

Is there an earthly park – a Noah’s ark - destined for life itself without the need to exploit it? Or, better yet, can we sign agreements and guarantee the non-intervention of human beings? Have we already reached, as it seems, the point of covering and wearing away every corner of the Earth?

How do the current tensions and their intrinsic relationships -if they still exist- affect the vital rights of plants and animals?

Do we pose the problem of the individual or singular rights of plants and animals in relation, not to Nature, which does not oppose them - but to humankind?

Does that antiquated relationship-contradiction between right and desire still exist, or it is just disappearing? Does the former tend to disappear because its prerogatives are made more blurred and distant by the socially immanent power of the second?

Of all these and other questions, could be there an infra-vital relation in itself, that is justified in its circumstantial dynamics and in existing beings, with indeterminate representation of their lives made up of forms, idiosyncrasies, intentions, needs and space?

From this perspective, can we face the issue, which afflicts and overwhelms us in everyday relationships, without forgetting the moments and emotions that are woven by the mere fact of being alive?

Will we be able, at least in part, to distinguish between what deceives us, erases us as vital subjects and transforms us, as beings who are objects of conscious or unconscious intentions, drives, bramas and desires, which in our specific case makes us recipients and victims of marketing and propaganda?

Is life a series of criss-crossing lines forming a network that sustains and interweaves or is it a straight line that leads to the cliff edge?

To "start" with, let us add a reflection about so many questions: a few tens of millennia ago humankind discovered the secret of plants and understood -for its own convenience- that it was good to cultivate them.

Afterwards, several millennia ago, the humankind learnt something about the behavior of some animals, of which it saw how to take advantage.

Several centuries later, with its "evolution", humankind "found" itself as a human beings, and developed the endearing practice of self-exploitation.

We have recently been anchored in the realm of "Midas", the technology that transforms and produces everything. With it one begins to "dispense" with nature, including humankind, which appears to be biologically slow, unable to adapt. Surprisingly, we have embarked on a process of global marginalisation that includes us, and that has been planned and orchestrated by us.

Yes, we may achieve "technological" security! On the other hand, I doubt that we can achieve "coexistence" between humans. But this is already a peripheral issue, which evidently does not enjoy the collective parameters of ants or manage to avoid the intrinsic aggressiveness that identifies us, pushing us to violence and its sublime apotheosis: the cybernetic destruction where humans die... with nature.

At the moment, it is enough to know that we are going, at a good pace, even in times of peace, towards the inexorable destruction of our Planet, the only habitable place for the earthlings and once so full of life.

A few more words that are wild fruit of a dreamy illusion: will these discussions and exchanges about peace and "security" lead us to redefine vital concepts such as being, existence, habitat, progress, models, technology and, why not, humanity?