Today has been a particularly befuddling one, finding me roaming the house, napping (twice), trying to write an essay (not this one), laying on the floor with Daisy (a few times), reading a very different kind of Sci-Fi novel, and generally only being able to focus for a few minutes at a time. It’s been great.
About an hour ago, the temperature having fallen below 100 degrees, I took Daisy out for a little bit of exercise. We went on the defunct golf course just beyond our backyard fence. It’s a safe place to take her off-leash, which pleases us both.
Two-thirds of the way down the 10th fairway is a tree with lots of ground squirrel burrows under its branches. Daisy is drawn to it like a magnet; sniffing both leaves and the ground, peering inside, circling it. I don’t think she’s ever actually seen a squirrel there, but hope springs eternal.
As I stood in the tree’s shade, I took a look around. To one side are the backs of about 8 modest houses, including ours. To the other side there is the 18th fairway with a few houses beyond. The grass has died, and there are fewer squirrels than when it was green. All in all a pretty lifeless scene.
Then it dawned on me. Between us and any of those landmarks there are actually millions of activities going on, as a feverish swarm of red ants near Daisy’s ‘favorite’ tree reminded me. Between us and the farthest point in view, the numbers are more likely in the billions. As this fact sunk in, I was actually a little awe-struck.
The predictable analogies flooded in, of course; comparisons between Earth and the Universe, that sort of thing. BTW, my favorite is imagining the universe as some dust in a giant’s closet, ready to be swept away at any moment. After a minute or two, my brain settled on a couple of ideas.
The first was a very simple, common observation, but one that is usually made in very different contexts. We ignore most of our surroundings. The second was, at first glance, another ‘penetrating glimpse into the obvious’: all actions affect all others in an endless chain reaction. Let’s start with our inattention.
Of course we miss more than we see. How could it be otherwise? Even trying to imagine paying attention to it all makes one’s head spin. The level of overstimulation might very well cause our brain to ‘fry.’ Fortunately, almost all of the time, those things we ignore are not relevant to what we are focusing on. Unfortunately, quite often we do miss important details.
Back on the golf course, I moved away from the seemingly aimless but very purposeful ants, while carefully not stepping on any of them. Another step caused a different kind of ant to quickly change direction. Did it ever find its way ‘back?’ Did it even try to? Did it matter? Did my sneaker cause a bunch of other ants to lose contact with it forever? Does that matter?
Yes, compared to the ‘important’ stuff going on, who cares, right? Certainly, one ant colony losing one of its members because I put my shoe down in its way couldn’t possibly make any difference, significant or otherwise. But I had about 300 more yards to go before reentering my house, where I would stop my disruption, as our floors are almost completely bug-free. And that’s not taking into account Daisy’s meandering 4 paws covering the same territory.
No, I don’t think our stomping on countless microbes underfoot will swing the US presidential election. We haven’t caused either a devastating wildfire or a much-needed rain storm, at least not by ourselves. However, if we can agree that every action causes some kind of ripple effect, at what point or under what circumstances might a ‘small’ wave wind-up building a tsunami? Now, what about the whole ‘meaning of life’ business?
The question is at least as old as our first attempts at philosophy, probably older. There are countless answers from countless sources. We needn’t try to list either. Honestly, the most accurate is probably included in the old adage ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ A simple substitution of ‘life’s meaning’ for ‘beauty’ is all that is needed. But there is a better response.
We don’t need to ask. None of the spirit-lifting phenomena of the world are diminished one iota by their lack of ‘meaning.’ Or put another way, their very existence is their meaning. Surely, that should be enough.
Are you not absolutely blown away by the size of the universe? Why does it have to ‘mean’ something beyond itself? Isn’t it absolutely amazing that those red ants scurrying around on the bare ground knew what they were doing? What looked like a mindless frenzy had a plan and a goal.
Finally, humans are different from other forms of life on Earth. Our evolved mental capacity combined with our physical form have allowed us to do things that no other species have done. Speaking cosmically, we’re no big deal, and we should be totally OK with that.
P.S. I suspect (don’t know) that I have danced around concepts from any number of philosophies, belief systems, whatever. If I have done so, it was in fairly complete ignorance. I am an Atheist, turned Animist (mostly, not sure about inanimate objects), with neither the interest nor the self-discipline to undertake serious study of the schools of thought I may have incidentally grazed. No offense intended. Peace.