ARCHIVE: The Cricket

*** This entry was originally posted to LiveJournal September 30, 2008 ***


The other day I was walking to my car across the parking lot at work and there was a small, black cricket sitting there near my path. When I got close, he jumped frantically away. With each step as I approached, he decided that he hadn't fled far enough and continued hopping away until he felt he'd achieved a safe distance and I passed by.

I noticed that his leaps were certainly impressive given his size, but that his landings were anything but graceful or controlled. Mostly he plummeted, landed with an audible smack however he would land, got himself pointed back in the direction he wanted to go, and leapt again.

At the time, I wondered whether those smacky landings hurt. I know insects don't have especially complex nervous systems, but they do have something. On grass it probably wouldn't have been a problem--as small as he was he'd scarcely have disturbed a blade. But on asphalt, he smacked. I thought that those landing must surely hurt, exoskeleton and simple nervous system notwithstanding. And yet, jumping is what he does. So he kept on doing it.

I wondered how much, if any, conscious awareness he had about that. My guess is not much, but I wonder that sort of thing about animals a lot. As another example, I often wonder whether a dog has (or wants) any explanation for why we look and sound and smell differently than he does, and why we're able to manipulate objects in ways that he can't (such as driving the big, metal ridey-box with the rolly-down, see-through sides! Yay!).

Reflecting on this, the metaphor for human life seems obvious. We leap. It's what we do. Sometimes, we'll land with an audible, painful smack and find ourselves pointed in entirely the wrong direction. We could stay in that spot, fixating on how much that landing hurt or on the fact that we aren't pointed in the direction we want to go. If we do that, though, we run a substantial risk of getting trodden on by a gargantuan shoe. So the wiser thing to do seems to be simply to turn ourselves back in the direction we want to go and to leap again. If we keep doing this, sure we'll take a few (or many) smacks on asphalt but sooner or later we'll land among the obligingly soft grass. If we stay stuck where we are, though, it's nothing but bleak, unyielding asphalt and gargantuan shoes for us.