Systems Within Systems

Our co-dependencies with everything else

We often see ourselves as separate from nature, as isolated beings inhabiting the planet. However, we are formed out of the atoms and molecules that emerged from the earth. A good proportion of the cells that make up the human body are not even human. We share our microbiome - the tiny world of bacteria, fungi, and viruses - with those around us, our family, our pets and plants. Without the microbiome, we’d not survive. We are part of the living ecosystem which makes up the entire biomass of the planet. We are in the world and of the world.

If we don’t consume a nutritious and diverse diet, if we rarely exercise, and if we’re constantly stressed, we risk disrupting the delicate balance of our microbiome. This leads to digestion problems, a weak immune system, and inflammation. Our gut microbiome drives brain activity, influencing mood, hunger, cognition, and stress responses. A fragile microbiome impairs mental health as well as physical function.

“The flu virus does not attack you; you set up the conditions for it to flourish within you.” - Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems

Modern lifestyles with an overconsumption of sugary processed foods, sedentary habits, and chronic stress create the conditions for harmful microbes to thrive. The ecosystem within us is a reflection of the ecosystems around us - as above, so below; as within, so without.

Our health depends on our environment, how we nurture it and what we take from it - the living systems within us and the living systems all around us are inseparable.

Seeing ourselves not as individual beings, but as part of a vast network of intertwined and unfathomably complex ecosystems means that we’re less inclined to blame the system, because we are the system. We can’t care for ourselves while ignoring the wider ecosystem. We are inseparable from everything that has lived before us, and every living thing that follows.