Bugged

As is habit, I was going to take my evening ‘sabbatical’ last night when events took a surreal turn. I turned on the light and saw a small beetle on the floor. Without thinking, I tore off a piece of tissue paper and scooped the little guy up and threw him into the toilet. However, I did take the time to think that I’d throw the toilet paper so that the bug could not swim out from underneath it when it hit the water. Basically, between the time I scooped the beetle up and the time I was sending him into the toilet, I had consciously set out to drown him. I didn’t even bother to immediately flush the toilet and put the bug out of his misery much less out of my mind so that I didn’t have time to reconsider what I’d just done. Surely, most people don’t second guess themselves on such things.

But I’m not most people. As the beetle struggled mightily, I thought to myself Why am I watching him drown? Why am I killing him when I could have easily taken him outside? After all, the bug had done nothing to harm me; I just didn’t want it in the house. And so I took extreme measures against a life. I thought about this for a moment. It was certainly within my power not to kill the beetle. I could take it outside and it could go on doing whatever it does, no harm no foul. I reconsidered my actions, got a glass and scooped the bug out of the water and set him on the front porch. Too late; he was dead. This made me feel terrible.

I usually take bugs out of the house with the exceptions being roaches and ants, which I kill for (presumably) very good reasons. (Actually, I don’t always kill roaches, but I probably should.) But in almost all other cases, I relocate insect outside of the house. Why? For one thing, it is awfully arrogant for me to assume some kind of special status based upon my particular form of life. What makes a human being any more special than a beetle? Because we can think and have emotions and reflect upon these mental events? Because we are not bugs or some other species of animal we have run roughshod over, humans automatically ascend to arrogance in thinking that another form of life doesn’t have an inner world, much less an inner world worthy of respect. (Note that this kind of thinking has long been the excuse for genocide or otherwise treating differing ethnicities poorly.) We don’t know what it is like to be any other life form, so I do not ascend to the arrogance the rest of my brood display. Unfortunately, I happen to be of a species that needs to kill and eat other living things to survive. (Yes, Virginia, even plants are living things.) That makes me sad when I think about it.

Another reason I take bugs back outside the house is because it is so much easier to kill something we tower over than it is to respect its life. But consider the hypothetical situation in which giant hostile aliens with advanced technology descend upon the Earth and begin to lay waste to humanity. Why wouldn’t any such aliens laugh at us while we scurry for cover or plead for mercy? I am not trying to say it would be some kind of cosmic retribution, rather I am saying that’s just how the animal kingdom works, based on how we humans react to it. If we have no mercy for bugs or other life forms, we cannot plead for mercy (at least not without being pitiful) when the Hangman comes for us. That is, unless we really are the special animals we keep telling ourselves we are.

So I try to respect life, not because it will allow me to reason with or plead for mercy with the hostile aliens, but because it is the road less travelled and because I have the power to refrain from killing. Isn’t that supposed to be one of humanity’s nobler traits? I’m not going to say I am the most noble human being ever to live, but surely any bug would rather deal with me late in the evening than deal with most of the rest of you lot.

Don't Be Yourself

People say many stupid things, but “be yourself” has to be near the top of the list. Why would anyone say something so ridiculous and trite? Is it for some desire for authenticity in relationships, where authenticity is somehow regarded as noble? I’ll accept that answer as soon as someone nails down the meta-ethics that argues for the value of truth-telling. Or is it that the desire for authentic relationships supposedly allows us to discuss things deeply with one another, as if I couldn’t discuss the ramifications of assisted-suicide with a terminally ill patient I didn’t know well. Obviously then, the desire for authentic relationships is not the goal of anyone being themselves. I can have an authentic relationship with my employer without them ever knowing my deepest, darkest secrets (e.g. picking my nose and wiping it on other people). In actuality, when we tell someone to “be yourself,” usually we’re really telling them to calm down and STFU. Now, how that morphed into the phrase, “be yourself,” I do not know. But that’s not our point today. Anyone who in all sincerity tells someone else to “be yourself” probably hasn’t considered the ramifications.

While it may be all well and good to be ourselves when no one else is around, if there is any desire among people to live among others, then society as such needs some rules. Without such rules, whether they are written or unwritten, being ourselves has consequences. For example, if I am in a job interview and the potential employer asks me how I would handle a rude customer, I wouldn’t tell the potential employer how I would handle the rude customer in a manner fitting to who I really am if I would like to land the job. Moreover, if who I really am includes watching costumed midget porn, it would probably be in everyone’s best interest not to engage in that particular activity at work. There is the more obvious example in which I may be going on a first date, in which case I wouldn’t reveal parts of myself – lying by omission – if I would like to build a relationship with the other person since building a relationship can often only be built by easing the other person into your quirks. How many times how the following statement been uttered? “So I just found out he has a large collection of Princess Leia action figures. But, since I’ve already invested so much time in him, I’ll see if I can live with it.”

Probably the worst time to tell someone to be themselves is if the other person has homicidal tendencies. And since that is most people, it’s probably never a good idea to tell someone else to “be yourself.” Imagine this scenario: Two Muslims are in a cave talking and one say to the other, “Akeem, I’m thinking about bombing the maternity ward they just added to the local hospital. Only, I’m not sure the Koran says killing babies is acceptable.” Naturally, Akeem replies. “You shouldn’t worry so much, Omar. Just be yourself.”

You may have also noticed just how cranky people get when they reach a certain age and basically have said, “Fuck it.” Those senior citizens operating without a filter because they figure they’ve been around long enough to stop playing the game? They’re not exactly surrounded by friends and family, are they? In the words of Joss Whedon, “Always be yourself…unless you suck.” Well, we all suck a little bit. We’re human after all. But that doesn’t mean we have to be so damn human all the time. One good, long glance back upon history will show you the consequences of us being ourselves. Ain’t too pretty, now is it? 

Human (Poetry)

Am I human? Am I the fury and the storm?

An eternal shade of conflict, A roses many thorns

Am I human? Crying-crawling in the mud
A prisoner of many passions reason cannot overcome

         

Am I human? Something-someone full of lust

Struggling against desire, trying not to self-destruct

Am I human? I’d rather be like God, 
Existing outside all the pain, beyond the hope of love

Place the bullet in the chamber of their gun; 

pull the trigger of mind’s eraser if I’m one.