… on reasons and purposes

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I Love Me a Fuzzy Bee

Warning: I am about to compare people to bugs.

People are like bugs.

You know, in that way that when we were little our parents (or Marlin Perkins from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom) explained to you that – even though you hate that mosquito and think there can’t possibly be a reason that it exists other than to ‘bug’ you (see what I did there?)… well, even though you hate it, it has a purpose.

And, if you were prepping to be a Catholic, like little-kid me, you would hear something akin to there being a purpose to everything and creature under Heaven.

Actually, you could be prepping to be a Catholic, or just a Simon and Garfunkel fan for that message I think.

Anyway, the bugs.

We all know all bugs are absolutely necessary and they have their jobs so even if some of them bother the frack out of us, we have to say things like, “Well, I do hate that the bee stung me in the eye, but they are necessary if we want flowers.  Oh and my throat is closing up, someone grab my EPI pen please.”

But you get it right?  It is cool, and probably a bit scientific, to say that all living things have a purpose.

Though having decided long ago that mosquitos are absolutely necessary (because dinosaur cloning), I am still confused about ticks.

So then there are humans.

One of the most mind-blowing things to me – which is hard, because an awful lot blows my mind during my time on this planet – is the mixture of talents and interests and drives and initiatives and all the other stuff that makes us who we are as individuals, and adds to who we are as an evolving and advancing species.

My mind is blown by the necessary combinations of these things (the interests and drives and stuff) that has led to us humans, as a whole, figuring out how to heal ourselves, entertain ourselves, create homes and potables and comestibles and everything from kayaks to mailboxes to bricks… individuals are behind all of these things, and infinitely more.

Humans talking, humans dreaming, humans sussing out stuff, humans doing.

We create great art as well as modes of transportation.

Entertain ourselves, by the millions, cheering on fellow humans playing a game with a ball.

We can guide ourselves by our knowledge of the stars or the GPS navigation on our phones.

We can enter and travel space, and explore the ocean’s deepest trenches.

We can marvel at a flower.

Or an atom.

And to do all of these things… the discoveries, the advancements, as well as the wonder and joy in the smallest things…

We need each other.

Depend on each other.

We have the exact mix of humans talking, working at, or thinking about the disparate types of stuff that makes it possible to live our lives today, to keep us moving forward, to learn and grow and be – from the person who figured out why the tsetse fly’s mating habits were so important (and those who figured out what to do with that prime info), to a singing voice that brings us to tears, to the ideas behind why we think and feel the way we do, right down to the smoothly molded cylinder of chalk I use to write a daily quote on my chalkboard each morning.

We are truly need each other for all we are and do and will be, as a whole.

I carry this wonder with me all the time.

If there is a purpose to every bug, then there is a purpose to every human.

Yep, even the ones who bug us.

Oblivious woman on cell phone who is preventing me from getting to my eggs in the supermarket…

Nice guy making a terribly off-color joke and laughing too loud after one too many with his buddies.

The loud ones, the quiet geeks…

The artists and the scientists…

The thinkers and the dreamers…

The good and the not so good…

The known-to-all, but mostly the never-to-be-household-names.

All with a purpose.

All having something to teach to, and something to learn from, every single other one of us…

On this spinning orb in an endless sea of starry night.

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Thanks for readin’.