Do you ever feel a philosophical tug at your conscience when you murder insects? I was getting ready to shower the other night and as I undressed, I noticed a large bug had worked its way into my shirt and was on my torso. I smacked it off but as it hit the ground, I realized it was a firefly. I instantly felt horrible for killing it, but not even one minute later, I ruthlessly exterminated a mosquito on the ceiling and a little brown cigarette beetle that was crawling in my bathtub. I acknowledge that I felt bad for the firefly because I like shiny glowing things. The others had no inherent value for me and my rule of thumb has been: if it’s outside and doing no harm. leave it be. If it’s in my house, it’s fair game. I think that this can be a metaphor at its deepest level, about the fact that we as humans intrinsically don’t value life in general; just our own and those that matter to us in some way.
