Today in studio art, we were instructed on how to make collages. We were each given a set of seven gray-scale pieces of paper. Each set had the same images, and we were to see what combinations we could come up with. Since options were limited it was easier for some people to think of ideas then others. I was busy looking at these images as a feel something moving on my neck. As a reflex I moved my right arm and scratched where I felt it. I thought it was simply an itch as I usually do, moments after I had the urge to move my arm and resolve it. There was something on the tip of my finger, and it was a spider. It's life was cut short by my recklessness. Its only a spider right? I thought to myself that millions of these bugs like this one are killed every day. The thought didn't help, and as I wiped it's corpse on a scrap of paper I couldn't help but think about what the spider went through moments before it's death.
Its only a small insect right? But I couldn't help but think of it as an equal, as most humans think of other humans (err, bad example). Although we're not always treated equally, we should be, right? Shouldn't other living beings be treated as equals? We're all partners on this earth but one argument is that some creatures need to be thinned out where as others need to be preserved. Perhaps its the ways we think differently that allows for a balance to occur. Perhaps not, but then again, its only a spider. Another living entity whose life was cut short by a reckless human, if the spider had been a harmful one, perhaps by action would have been more justified.
Spiders like many other beings lack the ability to reason, and I don't believe that makes them any lesser of a being. Does it? It certainly doesn't give us the right to kill them on sight because we're scared of them, or we don't like them for whatever reason, but the thing was, there are no legal laws protecting them or anything like that, nothing legal, just morals. If we can freely wrong them when needed, would there be any wrong in harming a human that doesn't have the ability to think? The question is between morals and laws. The fact just is that the solid laws that the dominate species obey states that a human being cannot harm another human being unless in self defense. If it was between a spider seeking to protect it's young, it probably wouldn't be considered as self defense considering the spider is considered insignificant and that a being of higher social status is obviously worth more then a being who will start and end its life with less.
Despite the thinking I did, it felt wrong to have killed it, and at the very least wipe it's corpse on a piece of paper, but the the thought of equanimity shot to my mind, and yet again it was only just another life that was ended, as many others end each day without recognition or purpose, or significant reason reason.
Thinking like this, you can't help but feel depressed. confused
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Psychoanalyze me, I implore you.
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