There will always be living things nourished by novel conditions: people, animals, plants, even spirits that thrive at the edge, that withstand discomfort and confusion, temperatures high or low, soil rich or stony. They turn toward the unknown like it is a warming sun; they make no face at what is bitter or strange. A naturalist might say they are tolerant. But mere tolerance does not explain the strength of some pioneering individuals’ attraction to the edges of their conventional habitats, nor the magnetism experienced by two such individuals or even dissimilar species that participate in novel situations of mutual benefit, which Frank (1877) called symbiosis.

But you might ask: to what end?

And I would answer: to the only end that life has ever known. To keep living.

 

—Daisuke Oshima from A Naturalist’s Notes from the Island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa. Originally published 1936. Reprint, 2030. University of Taiwan Press, Historical Reprints Series