I’m probably a closet tree hugger in a way, and appreciate the relationship we share with them throughout our lives. You mention that we never really own any living thing, but I wonder if we might? Consider the word ‘own’ …perhaps it’s only applicable to own something that’s non-living? You can’t own a living tree, but you can own a dead one that’s been sculpted into a chair or example. Owning is our way of claiming possession and you’re absolutely right that in a larger sense nothing is really owned, but perhaps when a state is changed, as from living to dead, it becomes easier for us to claim that possession? When it’s ‘dead’ it’s ours and when it’s still living …well, it’s just not exactly ours yet! This all falls apart when we apply the word ‘own’ to living things though (as in animals, plants, insects etc.) but the word still carries an entitlement with it, as if the living thing were ours and its existence depended on us.

But I suppose the changing states thing is what I’m trying to get at, for if we eventually ‘own’ complete living systems then we do run the risk of destroying these systems …bringing them to extinction. In a larger picture we could justify this; energy is energy and it’s simply recirculated into other matter, but when we do that I feel we get ahead of ourselves and ultimately run the risk of changing what it is WE are. And that’s what I too liked about Avatar, that there was a shared connection and no real possession or ‘ownership’ between living things. A ‘borrowing’ as you nicely state.

Of course the rest of the plot sucked -lol.