Just A Bunch of Ants

[Mr Guitar]

Not sure where to put this, but, here goes: 

Lately, we've been (slightly) bothered by an influx of tiny, what we call, sugar ants on the kitchen counter which is, mostly, kept spotless but a few show up anyway. When I got up this morning there were two little groups - one about the size of a dime and another a little larger busily doing whatever ants do. Out comes the damp paper towel and away the little rascals go to the trash bin. Now, this got me thinking - although I don't believe in any sort of supreme anything, wouldn't it be interesting if he/she/it came along and did the same to this lil' ol' universe of ours? I've often thought the same when stepping on or somehow flattening a roach or spider in the yard or garage - here we are just minding our own business, then WHAM!!, its gone in an instant. I guess it wouldn't really matter since we wouldn't know it but the whole scenario kinda fascinates me. Does anyone study or think about these kinds of things? 

[+and-then]

I think we already see this kind of randomness playing out in the world.  Natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, manmade crises like wars and revolutions, going to the corner store for milk and a drunk driver ends your life... death is a constant companion for our species.  I guess we'd be afraid to move if we really thought much about it.  If I thought that this life was all there was, I'd stay depressed.  As it is, I worry more about losing one of those I love than of dying, myself.  

Funny though... the older I get, the more careful I am with not stepping on or running over the other harmless life forms I encounter.   

[trevor borocz johnson]

There's a woods in my backyard full of dead trees and we get the big black carpenter ants in the house every season. I use a honey poison mix that I leave out for them. Once they find a cup with sugary pop in it in my room, I'll wake up in the morning and there will be like 20-30 ants on a single cup! Season is over now but I had to poison three times this summer!

[openozy]

7 hours ago, Mr Guitar said:

Does anyone study or think about these kinds of things?

Yeah but we are all in the same boat and we will all be extinguished one day. All life is fragile and we could easily become the ants. We are not important at all and will get no mercy, same as the ants.

[Alchopwn]

13 hours ago, Mr Guitar said:

Now, this got me thinking - although I don't believe in any sort of supreme anything, wouldn't it be interesting if he/she/it came along and did the same to this lil' ol' universe of ours? I've often thought the same when stepping on or somehow flattening a roach or spider in the yard or garage - here we are just minding our own business, then WHAM!!, its gone in an instant. 

Am I weird that I find this more plausible than the Book of Revelations?

[Mr Guitar]

18 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

Am I weird that I find this more plausible than the Book of Revelations?

Sounds pretty normal to me.

[quiXilver]

We humans are less than fleas in comparison to the moist speck of dust we occupy.

And our moist speck of dust is less than a speck of dust compared to the Sun it revolves about.

And that Sun is a mundane point of light in a sea of inky space occupied by uncountable pin pricks of light that dwarf our sun in comparison. 

We experience life from the center of our own tiny local awareness and this lends a notion of importance to the process on a relative scale.  But really?  Pale Blue Dot, with little organisms milling about in the five aggregates of co-arising conditions.

 

 

Edited September 19 by quiXilver

[+and-then]

On 9/18/2023 at 3:02 AM, Alchopwn said:

Am I weird that I find this more plausible than the Book of Revelations?

These days?  No, you're not remarkable in any way for that belief.  The thing is, for those of us who do believe there is a Creator and that those 66 Books we call the Bible, are a message to those who believe in Him, we are beginning to marvel that more people aren't waking up to the reality of that last book.  The book of Revelation (Apocalypse) is a message to the world about the events that will signal the return of Christ.  

What's more plausible than a warning of humans engaging in war?  The four horsemen are simply metaphors for false (lying) leaders who cause the world's wars (White), the wars themselves (Red), the economic disruption and famine that accompany war (Black), and the overwhelming death that follows the famine and disease (Pale Green)  

I'm no scholar and never claimed to be but I see these things coming together again in our world and unlike all those of the past that have followed that pattern, the weapons available today will make this appearance of those horsemen catastrophic in a way never seen on the planet.  Add in the predicted massive negative changes in our environment and the visitation of a meteor strike and it's easy to understand the prediction that 2/3 of all life will be extinguished during a seven-year period.  Based on todays population, that would be about 4-5 thousand million dead.  WWII had fewer than 150 million dead from all causes.