A Cosmos of Mutual Attraction: Andreas Weber

We are born into a profound curiosity for life marked by a desire to explore, experience and relate. The ever-unfolding world that a newborn baby hears, touches, puts into their mouth and looks at is deeply enchanting. As the child grows, this inquisitiveness transforms into an even more vivid curiosity for the world, particularly towards fellow living beings.

Adults, too, love ‘nature’ in the vast majority, they feel drawn to its aliveness. We can observe two things through this: first, our primary experience of life is not neutral, but is instead a process of being magnetically pulled towards the world, towards others, towards relating. Life is a desire to meet life. And second, this yearning for encounter is marked by bliss, by the essential joy of being alive.

This experience is not exclusive to humans. Although the natural sciences have previously described the physical world as a collection of inert objects, through the lens of attraction, we see a pervading desire even on the most fundamental level of matter. For example, hydrogen particles desire to be as close to oxygen particles as possible, a fruitful relationship that yields water, the element of life.

The Earth and the Moon also enjoy a tender relationship, with the tides being our planet’s yearning movement towards its celestial companion, creating an abundance of marine life as a consequence. If we no longer experience our cosmos from the perspective of cause-and-effect alone, we’ll sense agency wherever we go, and feel held by a loving Earth among the vast swathes of space.