“We are ants when we could have been absolutely nothing at all.”
This! Since life began on earth some 4.3 billion years ago, one could question the purpose and destiny of life here. We have made this challenge more self aware when we evolved some 300 thousand years ago. And scientists expect us to be around another billion years until the sun runs out of fuel or sooner before pending asteroid strikes, supernovae blasts, and other calamities that could take out humanity. And in that time we will continue to evolve as well. We will likely live longer and become taller, more hairy due to colder climates as well as more lightly built. We'll probably have bigger heads, but smaller brains, be less aggressive and more agreeable. A bit like a golden retriever, we'll be friendly and jolly, but maybe not that interesting. So what is the point of existing in this span of roughly a billion years on earth? Your statement is precious that we exist because the universe must do SOMETHING with its energy and basic materials. Why not us? Why not now? We could have been nothing, but the laws of the universe would not allow us to be so. So we are. And we will be as we are for some period of time. And then we will be something else. Which actually makes us timeless. Which is good, because I’m not especially looking forward to eating dog food like a golden retriever out of a blue ceramic dish for 1000 millennia. What to do next? Wonder more than worry… An ant crawled by me. Hello! I heard them call out. But I only smiled.
How strange to imagine what we'll be in a billion years, right before the sun blinks out. How strange to think where things will be if they are where they are now. My goodness. To whatever we will be after this, I just hope it's kind. Wonder more than worry. Always This.
"Is it meaningless? Probably yes, probably always yes, but guess what, it all is, and just the same, it’s still filled with stars. It’s all filled with stars."
THIS. I was just thinking along these lines yesterday, about the almost pointless mundanity of existence and how it's both utterly ordinary and utterly beautiful. There is so much we do and experience. So much that we feel, that feels big and significant and like no one else has ever felt this way.....but they have, and it's not big, it's quite small really, but it still matters because it's our life and we're the one living it. Even if we are just ants, we are here and we are alive and isn't that glorious?
I'd been thinking about this because I've been listening to an audio book of one of Alexander McCall Smith's stories. The thing I love about his stories is that everyone is so completely and entirely human and ordinary. No one is famous or endowed with supernatural abilities, there's no magic or other worlds, there are simply ordinary people living ordinary lives in ordinary cities and yet....the stories are so undeniably lovely and anytime I read (or more often, listen to the audio book) one of his stories about people living their lives in London or Edinburgh, I feel less alone. The mundane is the stuff of life and my gosh it's lovely to realize there are other people out there exepriencing that glorious mundanity too. Someone else is also realizing they forgot chips and will have to go back to the store, someone else also went through a break up and is living alone for the first time in their life and not entirely sure how they feel about it yet. Someone else is washing their dishes right now too and thinking about how much happier they are today than they were a year ago. Someone else is thinking it would be nice to call their brother today, and someone else also cried yesterday for no particular reason, and someone else is also happy that it's cloudy and raining this morning. And maybe it is all meaningless but it's not meaningless to us, is it? We make it all mean something, as if the universal energy that made us exist in the first place doesn't know any other way. And I love that about us. We can take the most meaningless moments and infuse them with light.
"It's quite small really." Ahh I love this. Also, I need to read McCall Smith's stories, I've not yet, but if it highlights the beauty in the ordinary, I am ALL IN. Thanks for the nod in that direction!
The stories definitely highlight the beauty in the ordinary! McCall Smith has written a ridiculous quantity of books, but "44 Scotland Street" is a good place to start- it's set in Edinburgh and it's lovely and often humorous (also it's the first in a series if you like to binge read/binge listen). I like the audio books because the guy who reads them has a very smooth and calming voice.
I took a writing class yesterday and what I came away with most was, nature is observing us too. We are individual but never separate. We don't get all the answers. I think we have to do what feels write to us and make something that means something to ourselves.
I used to be on a quest for my one meaning and purpose in life. Now I work to find meaning and purpose in each thing I do, each situation I find myself in. A bunch of little significances strung together into a giant life sized banner.
I love this. I feel the same. I used to strive to find BIG meaning and purpose, and now, as you said, I work to find meaning and purpose in everything. I'm learning to recognize the beauty in the simple and mundane.
I love the image of "little significances strung together" - it feels so true, the meaning we make is cumulative over time, it doesn't have to be llimited to one defining moment (though there may be some bigger ones along the way), rather it can be a consistent turning towards meaning making in all we do.
Those little plastic bags of poop bother me A LOT! LOL. I mean, I buy the supposedly compostable bags from Costco but are they really? There are some things that to me are such apt metaphors for human stupidity, and plastic bags of dog poop are definitely one of them. I walk my dog daily and she can pretty much be counted on to make one deposit on planet earth each walk, which I dutifully scoop up in that plastic bag. Sigh. (Do ants poop? Where?) But I digress. In a way I guess we are ants. And yet. I do think this human brain that we are both blessed and cursed with makes us unique as a species. The meaning we assign to our lives is what seems to matter at the end of the day. And your meaning here, 'still full of stars', is beautiful and inspires me. Thank you.
I once again liked this, very very thought provoking and truthful…. Me, hopefully not an ant….. life is meant for living, loving, and adventuring, especially outside our comfort arena!!!
“Does it all add up to something grand?” you ask. I ponder this as I scurry off to work after a weekend of repetitive tasks. No- but yes! It does matter. When I became a mother 22 years ago, my life became filled with never-ending repetitive tasks and I often wondered if the sum of my life had become merely that. But, at times along the way and now that my boys are grown, I can see that without all that, they would not be the people they are today nor have accomplished the same things thus far. We do all of these things, not because we believe they hold meaning in themselves necessarily but because they are important in the fabric of life, in the lives we touch, at home, at work and in our community. And that is where the beauty lays, in the transformation into something more. We are one thread in the fabric. When we glimpse the fabric, we can say, ‘Ah, that’s what it was all for.’
I will retire, get off this “endless treadmill” in less than two months. I like to think that I will be able to choose how I want to live if only and simply because there will be more time. But I know that my life will continue to be filled with the mundane- fewer things, though! I am at peace with it because I know that the small things hold our lives together.
Wow Laura, what an astute observation. The repetition holds the keys to shaping those that come after us. If enough did this well, maybe the problems we're facing wouldn't be so immense. Maybe. Here's to your retirement! I cannot wait to see how you spend it!
They all do it the same way" ... Dave Matthews Band, Under The Table And Dreaming
I stand in my kitchen and watch the tiny ants wandering aimlessly on the counter and think about this essay. Watching them there seems to be no order to their wandering ... meaningless wandering? Perhaps.
I have to believe that that wandering is anything but meaningless as they look for sweetness along the counters. ... and I have to believe that this marching to work, to a job I would rather do without, remains meaningful in some way or I wouldn't be able to manage.
There was a point I thought of at some point while you were reading, but it has wandered away ... just like the ants on my counter ... [PS. I think I need to tweak my meds.]
This really hits home for me. I've seen the biggest and strongest brought to the floor by life altering situations. I've seen the most generous and kind waste away so fast. I've seen too many people die in front of my eyes, grasping for breath even when I knew they were ready to go, yet their bodies didn't want to give up. I've seen the futility of it all, that rat race or ant march to work every single day and become stronger and better or richer. Yet, in the end, it's all the same, we die. Sometimes in the blink of an eye and sometimes, it takes only months or hours once given that final goodbye. I've realized that you can't wait to live.
You can't wait till retirement or when you finally have time or money, You might never have that opportunity. Life is too short. Looking back, 47 years are gone in the blink of an eye. A few years ago, I decided I wasn't going to wait to live, I couldn't afford to. I don't want life to pass me by. I'll do what it takes to live while I'm living and enjoy even the small things. My father passed away at the age of 58, never having met his grandson. My uncle, 67, passed during his second lymphoma battle. My mother-in-law passed quickly with a brain wasting disease very quickly at the age of 68, then my husband passed at the age of 41. In my mind, none of them got to slow down and enjoy life. I don't want to live like that. I want to find reason to celebrate and find joy in the mundane. I want to love fully! I want to bring joy because that in turn makes me happy. I want to give second-hand clothes a new life and save money by thrifting. I want to repurpose because it's fun, but because I truly think it'll make a difference. I've made my job very versatile and mobile so that I can work where I want to work from if I want to travel. I want to meet new and interesting people who have amazing stories to tell and just listen.
I've instilled that in my son, who has seen how short life is. He told me this morning that tomorrow, he wants to dress up and take his girlfriend to a fancy fun restaurant, just because. No reason, other than to experience something new. I was thrilled to offer a suggestion.
While much of life is meaningless in the end, I want to enjoy it now, while I can. Then when I die, I'll be star dust once again, back to my true and original form.
Maureen these observations are so powerful and astute. I LOVE what you said about not waiting for retirement or when you finally have the time or money. I see that happen so often around me, and then something happens and they missed their window, and it kills me. Thank you for this, for all of this, and I am so sorry for the losses you've dealt with.
I have listened to this multiple times and have been meaning to write this now for weeks. It's been busy but it is kind of nice to have had more time to really think about this theme. So here goes...
I live in the jungle, and have an ongoing battle with various vast colonies of leaf cutter ants. They are my nemesis and I try to come up with ways to kill them all the time. But I also have such a deep and reverent respect for them. I have watched them strip a mature lime tree in a matter of days. They build highways throughout my farm on which they carry giant chunks of leaves, that must weigh more than they do, for hundreds of feet back to their nests. Back to their queen. I have tried chemicals, organic products, corn flour, limestone, heck we've even poured gasoline down their holes and lit a match to blow them up. I won't lie. I have been tempted to use dynamite and I am pretty sure I could get some if I tried. But no matter what I do, they persist. Under those mounds there are entire empires. They are huge collectives where their jobs are determined by the size of their heads and not their aspirations for fame or fortune.
Unlike the busy ants of our society, they are not all out to make the most of their individual pursuits. They are not competing with each other for the biggest mound or to be the right hand to the queen. They all work together at a common goal. Which in this case, is to eat mushrooms! They actually cultivate fungus and this is what feeds them. This is why they kill my trees. They are bringing the leaves back so that the ants in the hole can chew them up and then regurgitate them into a big pile that ferments and creates a fungal culture which then feeds the colony. The queen is not the boss, she's a brood mare. Her sole purpose is the procreation. She is revered only because their existence relies on her to produce their eggs, but her role is interconnected with that of all the other ants who play a part in the overall wellbeing of the colony.
As much as they annoy me and kill my trees, I am in fact in awe of them and their incredible world. If only we could be like these ants and work so well together for a common good of the community. There are no backstabbing ants. No coup d'état to overthrow the queen and take all her power and glory. No militant ants who exploit the workers for all the resources that they hoard, while leaving the others to starve. If only we were more like ants. But who knows, even if we did manage to live in ant like harmony, perhaps some other species would want to blow us up with dynamite for eating what they thought was just for them.
They are still my nemesis. But a respected nemesis.
“We are ants when we could have been absolutely nothing at all.”
This! Since life began on earth some 4.3 billion years ago, one could question the purpose and destiny of life here. We have made this challenge more self aware when we evolved some 300 thousand years ago. And scientists expect us to be around another billion years until the sun runs out of fuel or sooner before pending asteroid strikes, supernovae blasts, and other calamities that could take out humanity. And in that time we will continue to evolve as well. We will likely live longer and become taller, more hairy due to colder climates as well as more lightly built. We'll probably have bigger heads, but smaller brains, be less aggressive and more agreeable. A bit like a golden retriever, we'll be friendly and jolly, but maybe not that interesting. So what is the point of existing in this span of roughly a billion years on earth? Your statement is precious that we exist because the universe must do SOMETHING with its energy and basic materials. Why not us? Why not now? We could have been nothing, but the laws of the universe would not allow us to be so. So we are. And we will be as we are for some period of time. And then we will be something else. Which actually makes us timeless. Which is good, because I’m not especially looking forward to eating dog food like a golden retriever out of a blue ceramic dish for 1000 millennia. What to do next? Wonder more than worry… An ant crawled by me. Hello! I heard them call out. But I only smiled.
How strange to imagine what we'll be in a billion years, right before the sun blinks out. How strange to think where things will be if they are where they are now. My goodness. To whatever we will be after this, I just hope it's kind. Wonder more than worry. Always This.
"Is it meaningless? Probably yes, probably always yes, but guess what, it all is, and just the same, it’s still filled with stars. It’s all filled with stars."
THIS. I was just thinking along these lines yesterday, about the almost pointless mundanity of existence and how it's both utterly ordinary and utterly beautiful. There is so much we do and experience. So much that we feel, that feels big and significant and like no one else has ever felt this way.....but they have, and it's not big, it's quite small really, but it still matters because it's our life and we're the one living it. Even if we are just ants, we are here and we are alive and isn't that glorious?
I'd been thinking about this because I've been listening to an audio book of one of Alexander McCall Smith's stories. The thing I love about his stories is that everyone is so completely and entirely human and ordinary. No one is famous or endowed with supernatural abilities, there's no magic or other worlds, there are simply ordinary people living ordinary lives in ordinary cities and yet....the stories are so undeniably lovely and anytime I read (or more often, listen to the audio book) one of his stories about people living their lives in London or Edinburgh, I feel less alone. The mundane is the stuff of life and my gosh it's lovely to realize there are other people out there exepriencing that glorious mundanity too. Someone else is also realizing they forgot chips and will have to go back to the store, someone else also went through a break up and is living alone for the first time in their life and not entirely sure how they feel about it yet. Someone else is washing their dishes right now too and thinking about how much happier they are today than they were a year ago. Someone else is thinking it would be nice to call their brother today, and someone else also cried yesterday for no particular reason, and someone else is also happy that it's cloudy and raining this morning. And maybe it is all meaningless but it's not meaningless to us, is it? We make it all mean something, as if the universal energy that made us exist in the first place doesn't know any other way. And I love that about us. We can take the most meaningless moments and infuse them with light.
"It's quite small really." Ahh I love this. Also, I need to read McCall Smith's stories, I've not yet, but if it highlights the beauty in the ordinary, I am ALL IN. Thanks for the nod in that direction!
The stories definitely highlight the beauty in the ordinary! McCall Smith has written a ridiculous quantity of books, but "44 Scotland Street" is a good place to start- it's set in Edinburgh and it's lovely and often humorous (also it's the first in a series if you like to binge read/binge listen). I like the audio books because the guy who reads them has a very smooth and calming voice.
I took a writing class yesterday and what I came away with most was, nature is observing us too. We are individual but never separate. We don't get all the answers. I think we have to do what feels write to us and make something that means something to ourselves.
I used to be on a quest for my one meaning and purpose in life. Now I work to find meaning and purpose in each thing I do, each situation I find myself in. A bunch of little significances strung together into a giant life sized banner.
I love this. I feel the same. I used to strive to find BIG meaning and purpose, and now, as you said, I work to find meaning and purpose in everything. I'm learning to recognize the beauty in the simple and mundane.
Oh what a sentence, "We are individual, but never separate." This is precisely it Ellie, thanks for highlighting it so wonderfully.
I love the image of "little significances strung together" - it feels so true, the meaning we make is cumulative over time, it doesn't have to be llimited to one defining moment (though there may be some bigger ones along the way), rather it can be a consistent turning towards meaning making in all we do.
Those little plastic bags of poop bother me A LOT! LOL. I mean, I buy the supposedly compostable bags from Costco but are they really? There are some things that to me are such apt metaphors for human stupidity, and plastic bags of dog poop are definitely one of them. I walk my dog daily and she can pretty much be counted on to make one deposit on planet earth each walk, which I dutifully scoop up in that plastic bag. Sigh. (Do ants poop? Where?) But I digress. In a way I guess we are ants. And yet. I do think this human brain that we are both blessed and cursed with makes us unique as a species. The meaning we assign to our lives is what seems to matter at the end of the day. And your meaning here, 'still full of stars', is beautiful and inspires me. Thank you.
YES! The meaning WE assign. So beautiful isn't it? And to the plastic poop bags, I hate them so much. So very, very much. hahaha.
I once again liked this, very very thought provoking and truthful…. Me, hopefully not an ant….. life is meant for living, loving, and adventuring, especially outside our comfort arena!!!
We're all ants, but that's what's so wonderful!
“Does it all add up to something grand?” you ask. I ponder this as I scurry off to work after a weekend of repetitive tasks. No- but yes! It does matter. When I became a mother 22 years ago, my life became filled with never-ending repetitive tasks and I often wondered if the sum of my life had become merely that. But, at times along the way and now that my boys are grown, I can see that without all that, they would not be the people they are today nor have accomplished the same things thus far. We do all of these things, not because we believe they hold meaning in themselves necessarily but because they are important in the fabric of life, in the lives we touch, at home, at work and in our community. And that is where the beauty lays, in the transformation into something more. We are one thread in the fabric. When we glimpse the fabric, we can say, ‘Ah, that’s what it was all for.’
I will retire, get off this “endless treadmill” in less than two months. I like to think that I will be able to choose how I want to live if only and simply because there will be more time. But I know that my life will continue to be filled with the mundane- fewer things, though! I am at peace with it because I know that the small things hold our lives together.
Wow Laura, what an astute observation. The repetition holds the keys to shaping those that come after us. If enough did this well, maybe the problems we're facing wouldn't be so immense. Maybe. Here's to your retirement! I cannot wait to see how you spend it!
"When all the little ants are marching
Red and black antennas waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way" ... Dave Matthews Band, Under The Table And Dreaming
I stand in my kitchen and watch the tiny ants wandering aimlessly on the counter and think about this essay. Watching them there seems to be no order to their wandering ... meaningless wandering? Perhaps.
I have to believe that that wandering is anything but meaningless as they look for sweetness along the counters. ... and I have to believe that this marching to work, to a job I would rather do without, remains meaningful in some way or I wouldn't be able to manage.
There was a point I thought of at some point while you were reading, but it has wandered away ... just like the ants on my counter ... [PS. I think I need to tweak my meds.]
YES! I thought of nothing BUT Dave Matthews during this! Thank you so much for this Gayle.
This really hits home for me. I've seen the biggest and strongest brought to the floor by life altering situations. I've seen the most generous and kind waste away so fast. I've seen too many people die in front of my eyes, grasping for breath even when I knew they were ready to go, yet their bodies didn't want to give up. I've seen the futility of it all, that rat race or ant march to work every single day and become stronger and better or richer. Yet, in the end, it's all the same, we die. Sometimes in the blink of an eye and sometimes, it takes only months or hours once given that final goodbye. I've realized that you can't wait to live.
You can't wait till retirement or when you finally have time or money, You might never have that opportunity. Life is too short. Looking back, 47 years are gone in the blink of an eye. A few years ago, I decided I wasn't going to wait to live, I couldn't afford to. I don't want life to pass me by. I'll do what it takes to live while I'm living and enjoy even the small things. My father passed away at the age of 58, never having met his grandson. My uncle, 67, passed during his second lymphoma battle. My mother-in-law passed quickly with a brain wasting disease very quickly at the age of 68, then my husband passed at the age of 41. In my mind, none of them got to slow down and enjoy life. I don't want to live like that. I want to find reason to celebrate and find joy in the mundane. I want to love fully! I want to bring joy because that in turn makes me happy. I want to give second-hand clothes a new life and save money by thrifting. I want to repurpose because it's fun, but because I truly think it'll make a difference. I've made my job very versatile and mobile so that I can work where I want to work from if I want to travel. I want to meet new and interesting people who have amazing stories to tell and just listen.
I've instilled that in my son, who has seen how short life is. He told me this morning that tomorrow, he wants to dress up and take his girlfriend to a fancy fun restaurant, just because. No reason, other than to experience something new. I was thrilled to offer a suggestion.
While much of life is meaningless in the end, I want to enjoy it now, while I can. Then when I die, I'll be star dust once again, back to my true and original form.
Maureen these observations are so powerful and astute. I LOVE what you said about not waiting for retirement or when you finally have the time or money. I see that happen so often around me, and then something happens and they missed their window, and it kills me. Thank you for this, for all of this, and I am so sorry for the losses you've dealt with.
I have listened to this multiple times and have been meaning to write this now for weeks. It's been busy but it is kind of nice to have had more time to really think about this theme. So here goes...
I live in the jungle, and have an ongoing battle with various vast colonies of leaf cutter ants. They are my nemesis and I try to come up with ways to kill them all the time. But I also have such a deep and reverent respect for them. I have watched them strip a mature lime tree in a matter of days. They build highways throughout my farm on which they carry giant chunks of leaves, that must weigh more than they do, for hundreds of feet back to their nests. Back to their queen. I have tried chemicals, organic products, corn flour, limestone, heck we've even poured gasoline down their holes and lit a match to blow them up. I won't lie. I have been tempted to use dynamite and I am pretty sure I could get some if I tried. But no matter what I do, they persist. Under those mounds there are entire empires. They are huge collectives where their jobs are determined by the size of their heads and not their aspirations for fame or fortune.
Unlike the busy ants of our society, they are not all out to make the most of their individual pursuits. They are not competing with each other for the biggest mound or to be the right hand to the queen. They all work together at a common goal. Which in this case, is to eat mushrooms! They actually cultivate fungus and this is what feeds them. This is why they kill my trees. They are bringing the leaves back so that the ants in the hole can chew them up and then regurgitate them into a big pile that ferments and creates a fungal culture which then feeds the colony. The queen is not the boss, she's a brood mare. Her sole purpose is the procreation. She is revered only because their existence relies on her to produce their eggs, but her role is interconnected with that of all the other ants who play a part in the overall wellbeing of the colony.
As much as they annoy me and kill my trees, I am in fact in awe of them and their incredible world. If only we could be like these ants and work so well together for a common good of the community. There are no backstabbing ants. No coup d'état to overthrow the queen and take all her power and glory. No militant ants who exploit the workers for all the resources that they hoard, while leaving the others to starve. If only we were more like ants. But who knows, even if we did manage to live in ant like harmony, perhaps some other species would want to blow us up with dynamite for eating what they thought was just for them.
They are still my nemesis. But a respected nemesis.
PS Google Leaf Cutter Ants
If I haven't said it recent enough, I love what you add to this place. Truly.
A quote from one of my poems: "We survive in small, infinite moments and that is how we make a life."
Oh I love this so damn much. Wow.