In times of crisis, we are reminded that human beings are first and foremost the animals that are aware of their own death. But the impossibility of experiencing death shouldn't lead us to nihilism. Ethics transcend mortality and scorn the risk of death.

Suddenly, thanks to the Covid 19 global crisis, our relationship to nature has been altered. We are confined to our castles, large or small. Nature is now all outside us: it is no longer that sphere through which we wander, stare at in aesthetic detachment or endeavour to master and exploit. On our few permitted solitary outings we discover that it is newly eerie; has sunk back into a primordial past where it is better able to flourish on its own without us. In the face of the uncanny, we retreat with half-relief to our enforced enclosure.