Trying to live life ethically can be tricky at times. You get tested. Like this afternoon when I was gardening and a fly kept on being a nuisance, buzzing around and landing on my face. However much I swept it away with my hand, it kept coming back. So what should I have done? Swatted it? It’s what most people would have done, but I’ve had a horror of killing things all my life.
I hear the voice of the collective consciousness raised in incredulity. ‘But it was only a fly,’ it says. Ah, but then I’ve never really subscribed to the ‘but it’s only’ school of thought. I tend to the view that, however compelling the arguments might be in favour of regarding the human being as the cleverest, most complex, and most spiritually evolved of creatures, the thing that drives us all – the life force, should we call it – is universal. And when you see things that way, it becomes apparent that every creature has as much right to its life force as I have. Separating the body of a fly from its life force isn’t so different from separating a human being from its life force. It’s still taking a life. And so I have to ask myself: can I justify doing that simply because the creature is being a nuisance? The answer where the fly was concerned was ‘most certainly not.’
Of course, I’m not perfect in this. I have my boundaries. I do admit to once having had an ants’ nest killed off because my kitchen and living room were being constantly invaded by them. The nest was, unusually, under the wall of the living room. Was it acceptable to do that? I don’t know; that’s why I’m not preaching. Sometimes the parameters get strained and push us into grey and uncertain areas. But at least I didn’t take the decision lightly, and I hope I never will.
‘Oh dear, now you’re just being sentimental,’ I hear the collective consciousness retort again. Maybe, so let’s consider the definition of sentimentality...
And an interesting fact: once I'd thought about the question and decided there was no way I was going to swat the fly, it stopped bothering me. Coincidence, or test over?
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10 comments:
So you are a Jain?
Ah, you're back.
No, Susan, I'm not an anything. I know this is central to Jain philosophy, but I didn't get it from there. It's been with me for as long as I can remember. I was the one who refused to join with the other boys when they put frogs in packets, then placed them under the wheels of stationery buses and waited for the 'pleasure' of seeing the buses drive over them.
I suppose I just never belonged.
How was Devon?
Way better that you didn't 'belong'. Today there was an earwig in my shower ... he went the way of your ants. Mostly always though, I take spiders and craneflies outside and attempt to shoo flies out the door and they usually scoot out.
I agree with Shayna, it's far better that you didn't 'belong.' Cruelty to small animals is a sign of a serious mental disturbance.
I try not to harm any living being, but, like you, sometimes I have no other choice. If bees or wasps or non-poisoness spiders get in the house I catch them and let them go outside. But I'm too afraid of Black Widow spiders, Brown Recluse spiders, and scorpions to do the same for them.
Thank you ladies. But don't you still get a sense of something bleak gnawing away inside you when you consciously kill something, however much you deem it necessary in the circumstances?
I agree with Victoria about the poisonous ones! And I might add in that I do not feel at all kindly toward mosquitos, especially around where I live (am convinced they are some weird monster breed!). And yes, Jeff ... I do get that 'bleak gnawing away' feeling inside to take the life of a creature, no matter how small - like yesterday in the shower with the spooky earwig.
I have the same dilemma sometimes, Jeff...I do feel that all is sacred and try when I find a spider to put it outside, but like the other women have said, if it's poisonous or really obnoxious....well, I also think 'hmmm, maybe this is their karma and they came back on this earth to learn a lesson in being this type of insect, animal, etc..and I just ended their life and helped them learn their lesson so they can move onto their next incarnation.' Silly, I know. I"m glad and not surprised to hear that you have a large conscious and heart.
Hi Wendy. I sometimes consider that there might be some karmic thing going on here, but then I wonder whether it's the other way round. I wonder whether I have been too ready to kill in the past, and it's my karma that needs to be balanced - by learning to be more respectful of life, and even by having to suffer when I feel it 'necessary' to draw the line.
I know what you mean, Jeff, I'm a softie when it comes to killing anything, even bugs. "Put it outside, put it out the window!" is my cry. I don't know why. In contrast to this I get great joy watching my cat (a devilish red who's stuck here in our apartment) fly across the room to catch an insect. Bingo – he gets them every time. It just fascinates me that he's so beautiful and cuddly with us, but is after all it seems, born to kill.
Please, do carry on being a 'softie' Della. Maybe we can form a club. I remember the horrible, fevered state I went into at the age of about eight, when my step-father set about killing a mouse in my bedroom. I pleaded with him to JUST CATCH IT. I think that was the start of my rebellion against all the dreadful values he tried to instil into me, so maybe the mouse didn't die entirely in vain.
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