The image of the virus contained by the primary forest and its ecosystemic diversity is reminiscent of the myths and legends that explain why one respects the forest when entering or working with it.
When the prehistoric fabric is destroyed, or when people go into it to extract something and trade it in the metropolis, the virus is released into a simple system where it can move and reproduce easily. As soon as I read this explanation about the spread of certain viruses, my thoughts turned to a story, made into a film, that was quite popular. "Princess Mononoke", whose director feeds his work with many stories from Japanese folklore.
In this film, when the heart of the forest is disturbed, evil begins to advance radially over the surrounding territories, drowning animals (that word includes humans) and withering plants. Different worldviews can arrive at similar notions even when they walk different paths. Either by using different languages or by appealing to different places of sensitivity and perception. This does not mean that they are all exactly the same. But it is worth remembering that each culture builds meaning from its own frames of knowledge, and that no one is better than another. None of them can explain by itself the totality of what we perceive in life. On the contrary, the best thing would be to learn from the different stories to enrich our outlook, to know different ways of solving problems and answering questions.
Perhaps in this way, we can change our way of relating to the world, to understand that we can build our form of community in different ways and that this one that governs today is not the only one.
