The assumption that wild skills are automatic hides the effort sustaining every life

Evidence

Be that as it may, the call of the grebe is, by some peculiar authority, the sound that dominates and unifies the marshland chorus. Perhaps, by some immemorial authority, he wields the baton for the whole biota. Who beats the measure for the lakeshore rollers as they build reef after reef for marsh after marsh, as age after age the waters recede to lower levels? Who holds sago and bulrush to their task of sucking sun and air, lest in winter the muskrats starve, and the canes engulf the marsh in lifeless jungle? Who counsels patience to brooding ducks by day, and incites bloodthirst in marauding minks by night? Who exhorts precision for the heron’s spear, and speed for the falcon’s fist? We assume, because all these creatures perform their diverse tasks without admonition audible to us, that they receive none, that their skills are inborn and their industry automatic, that weariness is unknown to the wild. Perhaps weariness is unknown only to grebes; perhaps it is the grebe who reminds them that if all are to survive, each must ceaselessly feed and fight, breed and die. — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 570

Categorization

• QUESTION: Leopold playfully ascribes a coordinating role to the grebe’s call — is there any real acoustical/ecological research on call-mediated coordination across marsh species?
• BMF: Weak oblique echo of Maps’ evocation of a place’s own time and the land as keeper of deeper continuities, though the match is thematic rather than a specific device.
• XREF: connects to: Attention is learned rather than innate, always and for everyone; Capabilities are acquired through teleological training, not innate generic faculties; A culturally evolved tool can restructure an individual’s mental capacities — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 747 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Industrialized labor destroys manual skill and familiarity with things #exemplifies (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2307
• Capabilities are acquired through teleological training, not innate generic faculties #corroborates (0.78)
• Attention is learned rather than innate, always and for everyone #corroborates (0.75)
• A culturally evolved tool can restructure an individual’s mental capacities #complicates (0.72) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 747