Ants are fascinating creatures.
The way they move in a single file line across hot pavement, carrying bits of pretzel stick you dropped at lunch only hours ago. Don’t get too carried away watching them, now. God looks down on us as we look down on them, and do we not try to hide from him more so than we seek his gaze?
We’re a bit like ants.
As humans, I mean. Functioning like a fine-tuned machine, producing and carrying goods like we used to read about in the history books. But then again, the history books I grew up reading once told me that some slave owners were kind to their slaves, so that made things okay.
Ants don’t get bored.
They simply walk around, trying to survive. They eat and drink and live. They reproduce and die without ever having been named. Each ant could be mistaken for another. How many ants do you think you’ve seen twice without realizing it? How many ants have stuck out as unique?
Ants don’t justify murder.
Some species of ants will dismember those from competing colonies. We think of war as a human concept, but ants will rip limbs from their enemies without even thinking about it, tearing apart bodies like it’s a sport, biting into necks and beheading even members of their own species.
They don’t think.
Fighting is seen everywhere around us, so why then do humans feel such remorse when the mighty ant does not? Why do we sympathize with fellow humans instead of ripping them to shreds at the first inconvenience? Guilt! Even in self-defense for shooting an intruder point blank! Guilt!
Ants don’t feel like we do.
They don’t feel bad for starting wars or winning them. An entire species of ant could be wiped out by another, and not one of them could even grasp what they had done. But then again, that is what makes us so uniquely human, is it not? The fact that we think with our hearts as much as our brains.
Indeed, humans are fascinating creatures.