Once returning home from my morning constitutional, an elongated piece of brown dirt pirouetting in mid-air arrested my attention and feet. It was a cocoon hanging from a glistening silken thread attached to the limb of a rain-tree struggling to find its majesty.

The tiny being wriggling so vigorously in its titanic effort to scale up to the branch won my admiration. That image insinuated itself into the folds of the mind, launching guerrilla attacks of random thought at odd hours of the day or night. And so assumed a larger significance than a madly spinning piece of dirt. Life's metaphor.

If the double helix of the DNA, which sculpted me, had received a nudge or two, I could have been that potential caterpillar intent on expressing itself in such a hugely complex way for such minute a creature. And why not? The same energy powering that potential butterfly also has the rest of creation for its playground.

Quadrillions of these winged jewels together with cousin moth toil unceasingly and, unknowingly for themselves and for the benefit of nature's other offspring which return the favour in various vital ways. They are blessed in that their life is all neatly laid out.

In contrast, humans stick out like destructive sore thumbs; shot through by the angst of the past and gnawing anxiety about the future. Driven by the demands of an insatiable ego, they war on nature and turn on each other with growing manic intensity.

From birth, senses are saturated with the need for instant gratification, bombarded by advertisements from every possible angle to spend, spend and spend. Snouts to the trough, world without end, so to speak. Captain Capitalism in amok mode powered by greed.

That disease is usually marked by uncaring abuse of the environment, eyes focused solely on the profit margin. One shocking example was the rape of Perak's Temenggor Forest Reserve's rich and priceless ecosystem through unbridled logging. And there are numerous other similar reported cases.