Flying worm; A confused confession?
I came upon a flying worm today. Suspended just at eye-level, he was twisting his way higher and higher into the air, even as he swung wildly from side to side. He looked like he was boring a hole into the sky. Looking closely I noticed he was attached to some unknown point above by one thin, spidery line, apparently about to become arachnid appetizer.
In a moment of proud and joyful humanitarian instinct, I swung the stick I was carrying and freed the worm from above so that he fell free in the soft grass.
As I walked away, self satisfied with my small gesture, I knew that in the balance I had probably deprived some spider, who might of needed it badly, of its hard-earned meal. Maybe even a hungry mother with waiting children who might now die a wasting death along with her children and a whole line of spiders. And then what had I done for the next victim, should there be one, who might otherwise go free of a satiated spider?
Then a worse thought occurred to me. Was it in fact a worm I had freed or a small green catepillar spinning it's own web in the early moments of metamorphosis? Had I deprived the world of one of its great little beauties; the flight of a butterfly?
"Thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought". It would probably be going too far to make this some analogy of liberal versus conservative thought on action in the world today. UN versus Bush or activism against terrorism versus individual rights. True, it would have been better to have had better intelligence on the distinctions between worms and catepillars. I will only say that I am consoled by the thought that the worm or catepillar has no way to consider its turn of fate to be either good or bad luck - morally right or wrong - or even any real thought at all. Nor will the world mourn the flight of one butterfly when I might have just as likely made room for another (though in popular times one can not be too sure about the Effect of a butterfly). However, this should not be said about the children of Iraq.
In a moment of proud and joyful humanitarian instinct, I swung the stick I was carrying and freed the worm from above so that he fell free in the soft grass.
As I walked away, self satisfied with my small gesture, I knew that in the balance I had probably deprived some spider, who might of needed it badly, of its hard-earned meal. Maybe even a hungry mother with waiting children who might now die a wasting death along with her children and a whole line of spiders. And then what had I done for the next victim, should there be one, who might otherwise go free of a satiated spider?
Then a worse thought occurred to me. Was it in fact a worm I had freed or a small green catepillar spinning it's own web in the early moments of metamorphosis? Had I deprived the world of one of its great little beauties; the flight of a butterfly?
"Thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought". It would probably be going too far to make this some analogy of liberal versus conservative thought on action in the world today. UN versus Bush or activism against terrorism versus individual rights. True, it would have been better to have had better intelligence on the distinctions between worms and catepillars. I will only say that I am consoled by the thought that the worm or catepillar has no way to consider its turn of fate to be either good or bad luck - morally right or wrong - or even any real thought at all. Nor will the world mourn the flight of one butterfly when I might have just as likely made room for another (though in popular times one can not be too sure about the Effect of a butterfly). However, this should not be said about the children of Iraq.
posted by Intomyown at 12:48 PM
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