Human beings have developed strange obsessions over the course of their evolution: Little pieces of paper, which are kept safely near the bum, light-emitting slabs of glass and plastic, and Taylor Swift.
One such obsession is with order and cleanliness. This is partly due to the fact that we have built ourselves tiny roofs and walls rather than live under the open sky. And so, we spend a small but not insignificant amount of time dusting and organising. We clear out cobwebs with extra gusto — ‘Damn those six-legged critters’.
For a long time, I used to do the same. Ants around the house were given the marching orders, cobwebs were introduced to the broom, and cockroaches were swiftly assassinated!
But at some point, I started thinking about how I could avoid the pests from coming into my home rather than killing them after.
I started questioning how much harm the beings we deem to be ‘pests’ actually cause us.
For instance, I avoid tempting the ants by clearing out sugar fallen on the kitchen platform immediately. If the ants do arrive, I let them carry out their operations as long as they don’t interfere with what I am doing. (They are usually very efficient about it.)
I felt vindicated when I read an essay by the poet Mary Oliver. In the essay, Oliver recalls her time in a rented house where she found a spider’s web under the staircase. Oliver’s power of observation and articulation is on full display as she describes the spider’s behaviour — from the trapping of a cricket to the laying of eggs.
But at one point, Oliver has to vacate the house. The owners, she knows, will clear out the spiders. In fact, Oliver herself has hired a crew to clean the house before handing it over to the owners. She considers moving the spider to a safer place.
Finally, I did nothing. I simply was not able to risk wrecking her world, and I could see no possible way I could move the whole kingdom. So I left her with the only thing I could—the certainty of a little more time. For our explicit and stern instructions to the cleaners were to scrub the house—but to stay out of this stairwell altogether.
But the line that stood out for me in the essay was this:
How do spiders know what they know?
When we casually kill an insect that does us no objective harm except disturbing our sense of order, are we aware that we are killing a being with knowledge? Who was born and strives to survive in this world as much as we do. Whose home this good earth is as much as our own.
I am not trying to judge anyone morally. I am sure more insects will die at my hands — certainly those that cause me harm and those that don’t. I am instead saying that we become more aware of our actions.
Meanwhile, there are multiple spider webs on the plants on my window. My hands itch to clear them with a broom. But I control my instincts. Like Oliver, I give the spiders the “certainty of a bit more time”.
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