Live And Let Live! | Flash Post 354

Button, while brushing my teeth this morning, I suddenly noticed a teeny-weeny spider slowly trudging along. It looked sad and weary and the idea of swatting it was quickly doused as I felt sorry for it. I came away leaving it to deal with life and, when I returned, it was gone. And I was glad that I had not killed it. Spiders are insects I have always felt icky about and have always either shoved away or killed but, this little creature, in particular, had changed my way of thinking and my compassion quotient.

That’s so sweet of you. All kinds of life have the right to live on this planet.

And, who are we to decide whether or not they should live? Exotic flora and fauna are hacked down and poached every day rendering most of them extinct. God or nature has strategically placed each living creature in their habitat for a specific purpose where each can live and gain sustainance from the other and keep ecological concerns perfectly balanced. Humans are the other species who are meant to live in tandem with all other species and contribute their bit to this ecological balance. But that equation has been completely destroyed by us leading to the collapse of our eco-system.

The damage done by humankind is colossal and I seriously doubt if it can get reversed.

We feel superior to other living species we are meant to co-habit with because of the greed we humans harbour: Greed to possess, greed to rule, greed to be one-up on other lives around us, greed to achieve at any cost and greed for greed’s sake.

This way, every life, big and small, will get trampled upon and disappear from the face of our planet.

Imagine a world without humans. Would there be wars, would there be greed, would there be enmity, would there be competition, would there be grief, would there be alarming rates of pollution, would there be poisonous gases to breathe, would our flora and fauna get wiped out?

On the day Dost and I caught the flight out of Mumbai to travel to Kolkata, I found a tiny silver moth circling round and round on the floor of our bathroom unable to fly and, probably, wounded. As I bent down and helped it to climb onto my finger, it found the strength to fly away as I held up my finger near the window. Do you know that moths live for a mere day? I knew I had no right to snatch away even a few seconds from its life and cut it short. The feeling was awesome as it fluttered its wings and flew away.

8 Comments

Sumona Chanda March 22, 2019 at 9:31 am

Live and let live. That’s where the answer lies. It is called CO-EXISTING and that’s what we all need to learn.

Reply
- author March 22, 2019 at 12:17 pm
  
  My dear Sumona,
  
  Absolutely. Whoever gave us the power to do away with who we humans want! A tiny moth has as much right to exist as any of us. We take our power for granted and think we can be nasty to those who don’t have a voice.
  
  Reply
Nishita Purohit March 22, 2019 at 9:33 am

I think you’ve said it perfectly ma’am. When we stand in front of a cockroach, we feel like we have greater power than the insect. We feel like we have the power to kill them just because they are tiny and small and without a voice. But when we are in front of a snake, we don’t dare. Humans are very smart. We overpower only those who are weaker than us, not those who are stronger than us…

Reply
- author March 22, 2019 at 12:36 pm
  
  My dear Nishita,
  
  Humans are basically bullies. We take delight accosting the weaker, the poorer and the less privileged sections of society. Children are even worse: Have you ever encountered a child beating a stray cat or dog to death or tying crackers to a dog’s tail and setting them alight? There are other horrific tales but I’ll let them pass for now.
  
  Reply
Nisha Balwani March 30, 2019 at 12:50 pm

Have you ever watched Animal Planet or Discovery or National Geographic ma’am? We criticise the human species but the animal kingdom is as violent…have you seen the tigers chasing the humble deer or the vulture swooping down on its prey? It is genuinely very depressing…every species has its own rules of survival.

Reply
- author April 1, 2019 at 12:06 pm
  
  My dear Nisha,
  
  I have watched Animal Planet and, like you, find it violent and even gory. But while animals practice their rules of survival within their world, we humans have no business redefining the rules they live by, encroaching into their territory and killing them for our gain. You must have read about the way T1 was attacked and killed unfairly leaving her small cubs to fend for themselves! Animals never attack humans unless we do. So why not leave them to live their lives while we live ours?
  
  Reply
Subhash Singhal April 2, 2019 at 2:37 pm

I agree with our author Nisha…what happens within the animal kingdom is their equation…they have to survive and the strongest, smartest species will survive…but human beings have no right to take their life away..or the life of flora fauna that protects us from pollution just for their greed of building…our country and do without a few buildings if we reproduce less…but it cannot do without the greenery. We have to stop being greedy as a nation.

Reply
- author April 4, 2019 at 2:06 pm
  
  Dear Subhash,
  
  Thank you. Humans have, single-handedly destroyed everything on the face of this universe: Instead of nurturing our flora and fauna and sharing this planet with them equally, we’ve destroyed them for our own selfish gains. We have poisoned weather conditions where global warming is here to stay. We have polluted the air we breathe, our food is smeared with pesticides, water scarcity is here to stay and times are not too far away when wars will be fought over it!
  
  Reply