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 Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 8:27 am
 " OK so - no, no just listen to this story," Bitter End said, shaking her head. " OK, maybe if I explain it with a metaphor it'll be clearer. Here, story. Story in your terms. This should be completely understandable.
There was once an..." she started with no real plan, but attempted to lay it out, " ...ant. And this ant was part of a colony of ants, as most ants are. Now, the ant had its role in its society. The ant was important, because it was good at finding food. So this ant would create and head the trails to food, and it would lead the rest to accomplishing their goals - living, populating their little ant hill, feeding and serving the queen, the mother of them all.
Now, this ant," she paused, but realised she could not quite dramatise the actions of an ant too well, " this ant was going about its regular business, running rampantly and productively, finding food and laying a - what did you call it? A freemone? - trail for its fellow ants to follow. Halfway through in leading them up a new trail to a large pile of...food - maybe a carcass, maybe a fruit, I don't know - a pangolin came along, swept up its compatriots and destroyed the trail to food in its scaley wake as it stomped about in the mud, devouring the ants like a merciless giant. The pangolin left the protagonist ant half-crushed, enough to live and struggle, but not mobile enough to return to its ant hill.
So the ant lay in the mud, watched its surroundings, thinking that the other ants would now not be able to find this pile of food that would last them through the..." She thought hard, stretching the limits of her organic knowledge, " upcoming flood of the marsh at night. Yet, to his half-crushed dying surprise, a lone ant finally came along near dusk, skittering its way to the food. It had found the food that it had not been able to bring back for its queen. It took some and went back on the way it had came from.
Soon, that trail that it had built had been rebuilt by someone else - a veritable torrent of ants that it once would have lead came to the pile of food. Half-dead as its compatriots came to cart the food away, the ant realised its existence was meaningness in the great cog of the ant-hill, and its existence did not practically matter to the queen. It was tortured by the sight of their productivity and complete disregard of what once had been. They never remembered it, not even enough to forget it.
In the end, the ant died, realising the lack of self-worth there was in its presence. I mean, not of the realisation, but because it was half-crushed. So its compatriots came and cleared its body away as food. SO." She gestured, sure that she'd gotten her point across. " This is a parable. The ant is a metaphor for us, the ants are a metaphor for kin, and the queen is the Swampmother. We have to understand that there is no point at all to our existence. It doesn't make a difference that we exist, what we do or how we think of ourselves - we would be selfish to think otherwise, and must accept - be aware - that we are insignificant, to be a better kin."
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 8:50 am
"It's not a 'freemone' trail," Sleepless corrected automatically, even as her brow creased, processing the entirety of Bitter End's grim tale, but did not get as far as supplying the accurate term before leaping to, "But, wait -"
"I understand what you are saying, in that the life and death of this ant amounted in the end to nothing: it had been important, because it was good at finding food. But in the hour of its death, it turned out that without it, it merely happened that other ants performed his duty, and even his body was gone in an instant, nothing more than food itself. If that ant had not existed, that would have made no difference to its queen and colony. There would always have been another ant. And thus are we, as insignificant to the Swampmother as that ant is to its queen. There is no specific point to our existence. Is that it?"
Upon confirmation, she sat back with a slightly smug air, shaking back her locks and raising an elucidatory hoof:
"But consider this: what if that ant...was the 'another ant'? And it had not existed – where would be the 'another ant'? What? And there would be another 'another ant'? And another. And another. And there would always be another.
"And each one of these these 'anothers' – if they did not exist, it would make no difference. But each 'another' is also a 'one'...and if each 'one' did not exist, it would not mean nothing: there would never be 'another'.
"And without 'another', the colony – the Queen – would not survive."
Before she could be halted by retort, she sat forward, eyes shining, and continued:
"But I am not talking of numbers, no – I am not saying we are significant together. I am saying that even as insignificant and replaceable as we are, we are still significant. Each ant is significant: each of these ants, these insignificant 'us'-es, each one was birthed by the Queen, are they not? They may never see her, they may never know her – she may never see nor know them, but that each of them was born...
"That each ant has each body, each six legs – each leg move. Each eye sees. Each mandible clicks."
She clopped her hooves together for effect.
"Each ant crawls, each ant eats – each ant lives. The Queen birthed these plain eggs, and in each egg grew each ant, from nothing into these marvellous bodies, that move and eat and – in your story – think. It was a sad fate that befell that ant, but, imagine! Once it was nothing, and then it could lie there and think – think! – as it died, that it was nothing. But it was not nothing, or it could never have thought so. It could have just as easily been nothing, as so much nothing is...but it was something.
"Each something is a miracle when you think it could so easily have been nothing. The ant, its tiny segmented legs and mandibles. The pangolin, its myraid scales – it curls into a ball! Have you seen it? An impenetrable ball. The Kin. Us. Kin. Here we are. We move. We breathe. We think. We talk. We are telling each other these stories.
" The Queen birthed each ant, it grew from nothing. The Swamp made each of us, each of us that is an us. An 'I', a 'me', that thinks thoughts of my own. A 'you', that – clearly – thinks thoughts different from an 'I'. There will always be another 'I', another 'you' – somewhere, there are two does, perhaps even two ants, who are saying very much what we are. If we were never to exist, the world would not change. But we do exist.
"And we are doing this, instead of being nothing... is that not - a miracle? In that we exist at all - we are significant."
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 8:52 am
Bitter End tried very hard to continue listening, and take in each word that she said - with helping gestures, even. As she digested each word and her final point, she gave her a somewhat dubious look, an I think you're overselling us a bit look, but finally said, "OK."
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Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2015 8:53 am
Sleepless shrugged, somewhat deflated by the lack of enthusiasm in response to her high on the marvel of creation, “I’ll take it.”
END
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