Preservation of life

A general musing on my philosophy and one moment in time

I saw a small ant this morning carrying an enormous crumb of food for his size. He struggled dragging it across the tiled floor. My thoughts were - 'I can't let this ant take this food back to his nest because then many more will come searching and my room will be filled with ants'. So I did what anyone would likely do, I reached down carefully and plucked the crumb away from the ant with my fingernail, scooped the crumb up and tossed it into the sink and flushed it down the drain. I felt good that I had managed to separate the crumb from the ant and not harm him.

My gaze returned to the floor and I saw him, frantically scouring the floor for his lost cargo - following the scent of the food over the surface of the tiles where it had been dragged, trying desperately to recover his lost material. As i watched him scurry around searching through each crevasse and crack in vain, I had a pang of guilt. What have I done? He seemed so consumed with need to find the crumb. Had I just unwittingly condemned his family to a horrible death by starvation now? How many children might die because I simply acted on a percieved possible threat to my environment? Was I callous in disregarding his needs when I allowed mine to control my actions? Surely I had never let him know abot my suspicions that if I allowed him to succeed that he would return with hundreds more and overrun my comfort. Shouldn't I have done that - made it clear that this wasn't a personal attack on his way of life but rather against his incursion on mine? Oh my god! How many innocent ants have I trod on in the course of my daily travels. On foot, bicycle, motorbike, vehicles of all sorts - how many? The possible number must be overwhelming in size!

Isn't it my job to right the wrongs I have perpetrated - even though they may have been innocently conceived actions? I debated a short while and decided yes, I must make amends for things which I have done without regard for others around me, no matter their race, color, creed, species ... I have a responsibilty to myself and my core values that I have to live up to. Regardless of the actions of others, I am responsible for the impact of my actions. What I would give to see that all men understand this and pay homage to the ideal of living peaceably - coexisting without threat to each other.

I went to the cupboard, took out a cracker and scraped of a few crumbs and placed them near the ant. He quickly took one and began his long journey back home. As I leaned back and felt a deep sense of satisfaction in myself, I watched in horror as the door opened and my mother entered the room - her very first footstep crushing my good deed for the day!

Such is life - Cie la vie! Even if we battle our own inner demons and strive to right the wrongs we perpetrate, there are those among us that blunder through life unaware of the havoc they wreck on many around them. Either through callous disregard or an unwillingness to share the wondrous bounty of the planet we call home, there are those that simply do not care enough about their neighbors in life. Life in any form is precious and deserves to survive, to thrive peacefully with the rest. If you are religious then where does it say that God intended us to take advantage of those things he created for us without regard for their wellbeing? If you are spiritual then where in your ideals does it say that you above all else are what matters most? If you are philosophical - where in your thoughts can you justify the destruction of something in order to preserve something else?

The human mind has the capacity for both compassion and cruelty. I only hope that I live long enough to see compassion win out and cruelty banished from our societies. This was a story about a human (gender not important) and an animal so slight in construction he was barely visible. Today's news is filled with storys of humans and animals of all sorts including other humans. It doesn't take long to see that today life has so little value anymore in any form. Don't let yourself unwittingly aid the efforts of those among us that have so little value for the most precious gift of all - our lives and those around us.

Overpopulation, pollution, and war are only symptoms of a far greater problem - the devaluation of life. Life is a universal gift from whatever source you chose to identify it with - the source doesn't matter. It's our responsibility as humans to prevent our detrimental impact on the sustaining of life for everything. Are you up to the task?