It’s been a couple months since I’ve met that beetle, but I will never forget it. For its extraordinary story has inspired me, perhaps, forever. I encountered it when it landed on a ball of duct tape I was observing. At first sight the beetle was a hideous thing, degrading my beautiful duct tape ball. It was not just an insect. It was a giant. It’s repulsively apparent insect features were only added to its hideous brown spotted shell. But I soon realized its brawn did not hinder its brains. After it landed on the ball, it seemed so wrapped up in thought that it didn’t even move. It merely sat. I wondered what had even caused it to land on the ball in the first place.
Perhaps it had been bullied by other beetles. They found him sitting upon something else, doing nothing but thinking. “Why do you just sit there and think?” They asked in whatever bizarre language beetles speak. The beetle, so deep in thought, wasn’t able to respond. The other beetles continued to scorn him. They didn’t like such a strange beetle. They scorned him so much that he was forced to move. Then he landed on my duct tape ball.
Here he was safe, and I would keep it that way as far as I could help it, even when I had to leave and observe other things, so I set him down gently on my windowsill. When I returned a day later neither the ball nor the beetle was there. I’m quite sure the beetle stayed on that ball till death. The ball probably blew away in the wind taking the beetle with it. If the beetle survived the wind, it would probably be too wrapped up in thought fulfill its basic needs for survival. I solemnly bowed my head in remembrance for the beetle. Although the other beetles would live long enough to procreate, that beetle would live on in a greater way. His thought passed into everything he touched. With him, the greater
7 comments:
Ah, an elegy for that beetle! But here's the question: was this beetle's sentience like ours?
I think I shall ever bear in my heart the memory of that beetle, who--though it cost of his very life--would not cease his pondering. Perhaps we shall meet anew, in some other life, the beetle and I, and, his pondering done, he shall reveal to me what he has thought, and I shall be amazed.
Not to be Mr. Buzzkill, but what if the beetle's thought was something really unimpressive to a human. Like, "when things are off the ground, they tend to fall to the ground." It might be an impressive recognition for a beetle, but for a human being, that's pretty old hat.
Mr. Buzzkill, your line of thought strikes me as rather foolish, beetle-philosophy being far more ancient than man himself.
If beetle philosophy is so ancient, then why is this the "first sentient beetle"?
This is so beautiful. I especially like that the beetle's legacy is creating other beetles that become nothing but thought.
As usual, Art is Miriam.
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