It's a Feature

I will confess that I really hate to kill anything.  Some little critters I can’t avoid killing because they are little, I’m big (only in relation to the little critters!), and clumsiness is inevitable in the interaction of little and big.  So I will smash to death an ant and not even know I’ve done so.  Involuntary insectislaughter.

 

But if I see the critter I will avoid stepping on it.  If it’s in the house, I will do my best to capture it and move it to the great outdoors.  Sometimes the effort to capture produces terrible results, but usually I manage to move the ant or the spider or the earwig outside.  Although spiders I try to leave alone because I like spiders.

 

I’ll also confess that some critters I do not spare.  Fleas.  Centipedes.  Cockroaches.  Mosquitos.  I’m sure the list could go on a bit more, but it’s really not extensive.  I do not molest or try to kill wasps or hornets or yellowjackets.  We hang our clothes out to dry, and use wooden clothespins in the process.  Wasps love to rasp up the wood from the pins, and sometimes a wasp will be on the pin as I’m hanging out the clothes.  If that happens, I wait.

 

There are all sorts of other critters that I don’t kill.  From feral cat to robin, from fox to pheasant, from coyote to deer—I leave them alone.  I know that the cat will try to eat the robin, the fox will try to eat the pheasant, and the coyote will try to kill the deer.  That’s nature red in tooth and claw.  About killing critters I’m not natural.  I imagine that if there were no supermarkets handy and no supply of meats at the store, I’d become a hunter.  And I know that the chicken I buy nicely wrapped in plastic was once a live critter.  I acknowledge the hypocrisy, if that’s what it is.  I have to live somehow.  And if hypocrisy is the path to continuing life, then I’ll walk down it.

 

I’d say sue me, but I suspect the feral cat, fox, coyote will not be taking me to ethical court.

 

I focus on insects, though, because when it comes to those tiny critters, the general attitude of us humans is that they are just bugs, and bugs need to be extirpated.  My sense, though, is that the software universe is right:  the little critter is not a bug; it's a feature.

 

I think we all recognize that truth when it comes to insects that serve us, like bees.  But the same is true for all insects, even the ones that I don’t hesitate to kill.  Even cockroaches serve a purpose.

 

Once upon a time I bitched to a friend about the continuing existence of mold.  Having performed its evolutionary service, I said, why do we still need it around to grow grossly in the seams of bathroom tiles!

 

And my friend said:  would you then give up your Stilton?

 

I would not give up my Stilton.  Now would I give up that marvelously formed little flying insect, so exquisite in its tiny little physical form.  It may not be a great soul, that critter.  But it is as beautiful as my Stilton.