A few months ago, one day I saw a couple of ants in the kitchen. I went on a red alert after killing them--I was sure that the two meant that more were on their way.
Sure enough, they came. In increasing numbers. After a few more days of spot and kill, when I saw a long line of them marching, I called up the exterminator. I wrote him a check, and he sprayed chemicals inside the home, and on the periphery outside.
The ants are gone. So long, suckers!
A few years ago, when I returned home after being gone for a week or so, I found that wasps had made themselves a home right outside my front door. Wasp spray and then hosing it down. Wasps gone.
I kill spiders all the time.
The occasional fly either has to find a way back out, or die.
When I kill these bugs, I apologize to them. A sorry, within my mind. I feel bad I have to kill them. But, I kill them because they come into my home. I don't care if they are away from my property.
If it is ok to kill ants and spiders and wasps and snails--oh, I feel so awful when I hear their shells crack--then why do I feel awful when I see a dead goose? Or a dead deer? More so when I hadn't killed them at all?
On my way to work, I had barely gotten on to the ramp, when I saw a dead goose by the side. A collision with a vehicle. This being Eugene, I am pretty confident that the vehicle hit the goose despite the best attempts of the driver to avoid the encounter. The ant-killer me felt sad for the dead goose. Apparently I value one kind of an animal life more than another.
A few miles into the drive, I swerved just a tad in order to avoid a dead skunk in the lane. As I passed it, through the closed windows wafted in the Pepe LePew stink that stayed in the car for at least a minute. I realized that I have never felt my heart bleed over a dead skunk, unlike how much it weeps on the sight of a dead deer. A skunk's life is not worth the same as a deer's?
About a month ago, I noted how the lives of some humans in some parts of the world seem to be worth a lot more than others. There is one awful hierarchy of lives that matter: some select humans on top, then other humans, then some animals, and critters like ants all the way at the bottom.
Should I, therefore, be happy that I am not an ant? Imagine being an ant and Nancy Sinatra comes towards you singing "these boots are made for walking"--a terror movie it will be that any second those boots will come down and you are dead.
I suppose there are lots of metaphorical boots above us all the time. One of those boots will come down at some point and, if we are lucky enough to be important, we will at least get to become historical footnotes. I guess the overwhelming majority of humans perish without a trace--no different from how the ants and the spiders get killed.
It will be too late for me to realize after my death that I am an ant. I am a spider. I am a wasp. I am a skunk.
I am no deer. I wish I were one.
10 comments:
Thought provoking! To someone, somewhere, you are a deer. May be you dont recognise that or remember that now. You are an ant, a spider and a skunk to someone else too. For all those someones, who will see you as an ant or a deer someday, can you decide whether you should live the life of an ant today? You want to live the life of a human irrespective of whether you are looked at as an ant or a deer. It would indeed be a pity, if you lived your life as an ant, when you could have chosen to be an elephant. Matter of perception, I think. What say?
Ok, am a bit emotional, because i am just recognizing the fact that someone thought i am an ant. I also know another fact : What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly. Am hibernating now, to become the butterfly - lets see.. This post has been a good start to my day!
Oh you are no deer. you are a lion.
But the post is also a perfect argument for why you should turn back into a vegetarian. I have had fun ribbing the Brits who expressed outrage at horse meat recently as to why it is OK to eat a cow but not a horse.
But , of course, there is no point going in this direction. Some animals will always be more equal than others.
Good to "see you" again, Indu.
Yes, I suppose it is also a matter of perception--I could think, erroneously, that I am an elephant when, in reality, I am an ant. We do come across many such people in our lives with an enormously inflated opinion of how important they are.
And, yes, "to someone, somewhere" we could be deer. It is neat that "deer" sounds like "dear" ...
All these remind of this post as well:
http://sriramkhe.blogspot.com/2012/10/more-on-life-and-death.html
Apparently I am not even a deer to Ramesh, but more than that: a lion!
Right from our childhood, through all the stories, we have also been taught on such a hierarchy, right? A lion as the king of the forest and the worker ants ... unfortunately, yes, some will be more equal than others.
(yes, that cognitive dissonance on eating: http://sriramkhe.blogspot.com/2013/03/when-you-see-young-lambs-on-green.html)
BTW, Indu, am not sure how I ought to connect the dots between "a bit emotional" and somebody thinking of you as an ant. I wish you well ... you are a powerful elephant
My wife and I had to fight a covert war on ants this year. Eradicating ants with quick and decisive action, all out the view of our 3 and 2 year old boys. We learned to be covert a bit too late, our ant killing exploits spilled out to the yard where our boys wanted to do a bit of smashing themselves one day. We had a good lesson on not harming things just to harm them and that we only wanted the bugs in (in versus out still a major learning concept) the house to be gone. They have since been gentle and humane and we sneaky about our pest squashing.
Interesting your mention of a goose. I too, seeing a road kill goose, would have been upset; and I say now with full disclosure, that I am a professional waterfowl killer. Seriously, I moonlight for a major manufacturer of calls and decoys - making hunting videos and guiding hunts. Goose hunting, in particular, is my specialty. I love hunting geese. When doing so though, I always feel a twinge of remorse with every harvested animal. I even say a silent apology and thanks when I am dispatching them. Nothing upsets me more than having an unclean kill, or worse off crippling an animal and not getting them in the bag. I have hunting partners who think I am certifiably nuts when I count a lost animal against my daily harvest limit and choose not to take another animal. I also deer and elk hunt. I am proud that hunting is in my heritage and think it a noble and honorable thing when done by sportsmen and an awful thing when done wrong. I hope I haven't offended; it was not my point. I just found this conversation interesting and thought I would weigh in that even we hunters have a conscience when killing. I also love and cherish waterfowl, this time of year especially when watching them mate and breed, I can watch ducks and geese all day; even if I don't plan to hunt them the next day. Maybe I will be a Canada goose in the future, I just hope I remember what a spread of decoys looks like.
Thanks Sriram –for calling me an elephant!!! I ran to the gym today ;-) It is ok not to connect the dots. I let them see the ant they was the ‘vamana’ - the viswa roopa darshanam was done. So I really had to work it out, may be someone can call me a deer today!
I want to react on Ramesh’s comment asking you to become vegetarian. Ok, some animals are made more equal than others- but are plants less than animals? Can I pl scratch both your wisdom here? Does one have to be a vegetarian only because animals are more equal to humans - than plants?
Indu, I will leave it to Ramesh to argue his side on the question you raise on animals versus plants.
(I should note here my animal consumption is so minimal that my neighbor jokes that I am an Oregon hippie who doesn't do weed!)
I suppose Mike here will be wondering what the vamana is all about--Hindu mythology, which will take up too much time to explain :) I suppose the moral of that story can also be that one shouldn't be fooled by the appearance, right?
(the imagery of you rushing to the gym is hilarious!!!)
Mike, no offense at all when you write about hunting. For one, even if something is against my own values, I believe in honest deliberations. For another, in this case, hey, a long, long time ago, our--yours and mine--ancestors were hunters. It is in our genes.
What you write about is what I have always imagined real hunters to be--respectful of the animal on the other side of the weapon.
A former student, who was from Alaska, often talked about his hunting. He and his friends hunted and then ate most of their hunt when they spent a couple of days in the wilderness away from civilization. It is something I simply do not understand. But, to each his own. But, he, too, got pissed off at the irresponsible hunters ...
BTW, Ramesh emailed me a link to this:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/portland-police-officer-stops-car-chase-help-duck-140849603.html
It says a lot about us Oregonians, and fits in well with the context of this post and discussions.
@Indu - You are a doe eyed deer :)
The vegetarian argument is an old and utterly irresolvable one. I can only present my belief and will respect every other belief when it comes to food, especially zhongguo ren who eat everything !!
My belief is try not to kill for food. Top on the list would be items like fruits where you don't kill the plant or tree. But then, this alone cannot provide full nutrition. Next in the hierarchy would be to "kill" the plant, but thankfully, plants do not have the same level of suffering or senses as animals, so I believe its a lesser evil. I stop here and kill no further. Others move well up in the killing chain. To each his own. As far as Sriram is concerned, I take every opportunity to preach, sermonise, harass, pain, needle, etc etc, simply because he is a good bloke, a great friend, a nice sport . And its good fun ! See with his hair, he thinks he is a hippie :):)
Ok, more to add on killing plants!
a few days ago, a friend sent me this one:
http://www.dailygood.org/story/428/life-on-a-farm-luanne-armstrong/
"Why not make the assumption that animals and plants have something; what do we call it? Aliveness? Awareness? Conscious existence? Proceed from there. Why constantly ask animals and plants, who can't speak our languages and who have no legal standing within our courts, to prove their intelligence, their consciousness, their equality with humans? After all, do animals acknowledge our superiority? Does the grass bow before us?"
Thanks, Ramesh, for reminding me about my bald(ing) head ;)
I love that story of the PD on patrol stoping to save the ducks. My wife manages the Facebook account for Oregon Peace Officer's Assoc. and that story got a bit of love. She also coordinates trainings for police officers and and other social services. If you, or any professor, ever have a compelling topic for training let me know.
In regards to Vamana, and Hinduism in general, when teaching my students about world religions I always find my understandings woefully inadequate. In fact, I even find the understanding of my own faith inadequate; but hey so too did the St. Thomas Aguinas. Please give me some advice and wisdom that I should be sure to always give my students when teaching them your cultural heritage. What about Hinduism in particular must they know?
I remember well when Dr, Sil confessed to our class his personal crisis after falling in love with the hamburger after coming to the States. I have often wondered, why the cultures of India were so completely removed from hunting. Is the reduction/removal of meat from diets a carry over from the Harappa or did it occur later? Is it geographically influenced, the benefit from a highly fertile region where plant based foods are/were abundant enough to not need animal protein and thus the animals were more respected for their other attributes? May I assume it was a slap in the face during the period of the Raj when the colonialists were undertaking lavish "safaris"? I know it would have pissed me off to pack in a bunch of rich guys, while earning poor wages, and then watch them kill something I would rather be living.
I think we Americans can pin our hunting obsession, and in-turn or gun freakishness, on the Brits too. For the early settlers hunting was a new right, the deer no longer belonged to the king, and hunting became the hobby and livelihood of ordinary man and not the royalty.
Please excuse my Blogger name. This is the account I manage my Contemporary Issues blog with. I suppose, I am still too insecure in my age to let my students openly view my first name.
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Oh, hey Mike, India has a long and rich history of hunting, and eating animals. Even the Hindu gods, in the mythology, go hunting.
One of the famous epic stories from India, about Shakuntala, could not have happened if the king hadn't been on a hunt. It was only a minority that didn't consume animals and the rest did if they could afford to or hunt ...
In the village where my grandmother lived, there was an annual celebration that included the killing of chicken and goats. (those have been banned now.) One aunt freaked me out when she recalled how in her younger days, once she accompanied her father to one such feast. Girls were allowed to go until they started menstruating. When it came time to eating, apparently one guy served on every banana-leaf (the plate, if you will) a drop of his own blood. Yep, he had intentionally caused a wound to bleed and ...
As I often, often, jokingly comment, there is nothing linear in India and everything is bloody intertwined and complicated. So, even for me, who was born and raised in India, the country and its people are awfully difficult to understand, which then means that predicting their behavior is extremely difficult. America is way easier to understand ;)
You ask five Hindus on what are the essentials that somebody needs to understand about that religion and you will get a hundred different responses. Which is also why I love the title of Amartya Sen's book, "The Argumentative Indian" ;) So, good luck trying to teach about India and Hinduism!!!
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