Lately I’ve been trekking to Colorado to my in-laws’ to help prepare their old house for sale. In the absence of humans, other denizens have taken up residence. The first I noticed were the mice. I didn’t notice mice, that is, but I noticed mouse droppings. Lots of them. Everywhere. My mind raced to rabies and hantavirus. Being in the house, I felt dirty, contaminated. My space had been violated by nasty little interlopers. Vandals! Trespassers! They were gnawing on boxes and can labels in the pantry. Nesting in clothes and sheets in closets, they’d been running across countertops and bed pillows. So I did the natural thing for a human in my position: I set out to kill them. I put out traps and called pest control.
With my eye in constant scan mode to detect rice grain pellets of mouse poop in any and all locations, bleach spray ready to hand, I was startled one day by something else. Something that arrested my foot in the act of descending. A terra cotta pellet on the terra cotta tile had detached itself and was meandering leisurely of its own accord. I bent very close to find that though they were of the same color, they were not of the same essence. The moving pellet was shiny and spotted. In the middle of winter, indoors, was a ladybug wandering the floors of my in-laws’ kitchen. There were no plants, no aphids on plants, nothing I could think of besides warmth, which had attracted it to their house. On a superstitious whim, I spoke to it: “thank you, ladybug. I wish I had something to give you.” Since then I tiptoe across the kitchen, on the lookout, so I don’t smash our harbinger of good luck. Because man, could we use some good luck. She made me feel sad, because I worry that she will starve to death, and there is nothing I can do to help her besides try to keep from killing her outright. My impulse was to protect her, help her.
Why? Two interlopers–the mouse and the ladybug–both seeking food and shelter, but the one I would kill and the other not just spare, but assist, if I could. For both, this is their territory first. We are very much settlers on first nations’ land. The impermeability of the structure of the house is an illusion. It is as much a part of their ecology as the trees and grass. Eco-logy: house-logic. In sum, they both have as much right to occupy it as we. They are the same in this regard. But the one, the mouse, I label “threat,” in that it would appropriate my resources (my stored food, my bed blankets) and possibly harm my health by passing diseases. And the other, the ladybug, I label “friend” in that she is cute and symbolically, at least, can improve my lot in life. She is perceived as not just neutral, but beneficial. Nevermind that she is a vicious predator of her own mates and other bugs and her pupal stage looks like something out of Alien.
I define the worth of both, including their right to live, in relation to me and my material well-being. I banish the one and open my door to the other. They both need the same things and have as much right to an unoccupied house as I, so I am really nothing but a hypocrite*, and it increases my guilt ten-fold to be the changeful god of their universes. But I wouldn’t necessarily change my choices even so. Yes, Uncle Ben, this is my responsibility, and it can’t always mean do no harm. I have to live with being a predator of sorts as well and call the spade of arbitrariness just that.
*I have to note here that I have nothing against mice qua mice. My daughter has a pet mouse named Toad and I rather do adore her.
Life in the Multiverse 