Well, let’s just say that it applies to me, to you, to everyone, throughout our lives,
from those early cries in the cradle, to our last stuttering steps. That’s why I highlight the term,
the concept if you will,
because it’s so important to each and every one of us joint inhabitants of planet Earth.

Where does Our Niche come from? What is it affected by? And how do we choose to carve and develop it? These are the most personal questions for us all to deal with. And of course, how we do this in a communal sense, alongside others, will have lasting significance for ourselves, other species and the planet.

At birth, our brand-new world is a clean slate on which we can draw the life we wish to lead, and people we prefer to met. Though not really; even at that point of entry to the world, we are the child of a mother and father, who inhabit a specific culture. Already we’re confined and codified; occupying our birthright space. Interplays with people and places in our vicinity form the basis of relationships and activities for life.

If we had been born into an alternative existence, or chosen another route, then the result would have been quite different.

Imagine what one doesn’t see,
Or hear, or feel,
Or experience,
Through any one life
On this blue-green globe.
The choice we have is limitless;
The path we choose to take,
Governed by a potent mix
Of genes and circumstantial fate.

Reality comes individually:
A short, sweet glimpse,
A minute amount,
From oceans of people
And deserts of place.
Within some overall time-set frame
We carve and whittle our niche,
Discarding the remaining sequoia tree
For the other six billion to reach.

Duncan Gregory 2003.