Having sympathy for all living things

bTheBestScrewTheRest

7 Posts

September 06 2015 00:19 GMT

Today in my house I saw an ant so I put on my sandal on one foot and stepped on him with all my weight. I thought I killed him because he wasn't moving. But when I returned a few minutes later, I saw he was struggling to walk. Apparently I had crushed his back legs so he was barely pulling itself along with his front arms. I thought about stepping on him again, but he looked so helpless. When he saw me towering over him he immediately froze in fear. I thought about how he had done nothing wrong for me to want to kill him. He was simply living by instinct, maybe searching for food, and not capable of knowing that he was intruding on my property. And I felt sympathy for him. If our roles were reversed, with him being the human and me being the ant, I would want him to spare my life too. Because although the life of an ant may not seem significant from our point of view, it's all he knows. And I saw tremendous perseverance and resilience in him, a real burning to desire to live. I thought, I stepped on him once and he didn't die, so it wouldn't be right for me to step on him again. This little guy was meant to live. I hoped he could return to his colony and relax and eventually recover from his injury and go on to live a happy and productive life. I felt bad that I had stepped on him in the first place, I did it blindly as a conditioned response by society. I've killed bugs before, but there was something special about him. I saw a little bit of myself in him, having the will to carry on and the courage to rise again despite the odds.

MountainDewJunkie

United States10348 Posts

September 06 2015 00:34 GMT

It probably would have been more humane to just finish the job if he was in that condition.

Djzapz

Canada10681 Posts

September 06 2015 01:43 GMT

People are very quick to give agency to little critters. It must be because of all those shows with talking animals.

Would it make you feel bad to know that every second, your body kills living organisms by the thousands. They don't know they're dying though. They don't know they're alive. They don't know anything. They just do things. The crushed ant doesn't continue going because of a desire to live, it's because what else is it going to do? Call mom on the phone and ask her to order crutches on Amazon? It goes forward, not even wondering why things are not as usual, it doesn't know that things are different. It just acts.

Note: I'm no ant psychologist.

I hope you're at peace with your body butchering billions of living organisms that are too dumb to care.

demonym

Canada66 Posts

September 06 2015 03:54 GMT

Yeah, it can be a bit sad when they're struggling along like that, but also a bit inspiring like how you said. I suppose it's easy to forget Most living things want to continue living and will do their best to keep on going.

From what I just looked up about ants there is a chance she might still make it (no wings means it's a female) the legs won't grow back but if the carapace isn't too crushed and none of the important organs are injured the surfaces can become sealed again.