Jeremiah

Some bloodthirsty entity drank me for dinner one night last week. I awoke with three large, itchy welts on my arms. The welts decreased in size, but still itch. Closer inspection reveals that each welt has two insertion points about .5mm apart. I do not know if the insect had two fangs or if I was the menu for an insect date. Apparently I was good enough for three courses. My initial reaction to these irritating welts was annoyance and desire to kill the preying beasts if I ever encountered them again. But then, completely unprovoked, I began to think about what Alan Hankin would do.

Alan would probably be amazed that such a tiny creature could bite me multiple times without my noticing, that the numbing agent would still bother me well after the creature left, and that blood not puss comes out of the insertion points when the welt is squeezed. While Alan may be gone, he changed the way I look at the world. Everything living on this planet, regardless if it is deemed to have a soul or not, is amazingly adapted for survival. The respect for all life I encountered in his class makes me now squeamish even to kill the ants that sometimes invade my kitchen. I know this may sound bizarre, but forgetting that we are all subject to mother nature is all too easy these days.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 24th, 2005 at 2:12 and is tagged life.