I have been reading the book The Final Empire by Wm. H. Kötke which is available as an inexpensive ebook from Author House. While my motivation to read it was because it seems like the authoritative reference for the book Garden Planet by the same author, it has offered a lot of insights into other areas. Life Cooperates is a sub-heading in a chapter titled The Principles of Life. Here is how that part starts:

Our subconscious conditioning leads us to believe in the ubiquity of violence. We see the culture of violence of the empire as natural. Nonetheless, there is no mindless, gratuitous violence in nature. There is eating. Predators eat prey and the prey violently resist but organisms don’t go around attacking each other for no reason. There are territorial challenges and mating challenges but these seldom reach the stage of violence and death. Our conditioned belief in the violence in nature is so deep that the Hollywood film makers who create “nature” movies train animals to fight for the films. Wild stallions kill each other and bears attack each other in the movies because it adds drama and it lends an air of “authenticity” to the film. People expect it, so it is faked for the audience.

I didn't pick this section because it was the most amazing in the book but because it was just another one of the typical insights in the book. One of the many ways the author shows how we, the humans, are out of balance with nature. He explains this is created by civilization and that it is a fatal condition. But, he also explains how we can fix things.