When it comes to ants, I feel like Vishnu: “I am death, destroyer of worlds.” We suffer from periodic invasions of ants in the house, usually in the bathroom or kitchen, and when they decide to visit, they bring the whole family, usually thousands. So we stomp, spray, erect barriers of essential oils, until finally it’s too much and we lay down huge puddles of Terro for them to take back to the colony. And then we clean up all the bodies, which is when the karmic guilt starts to set in. To these tiny, industrious creatures, I’m no less a monster than Hitler. I may kill them with remorse, but it doesn’t keep the Raid can under the sink, if you know what I mean.
I’ve been thinking about this partly because the colony under the house has been sending up scouts again now that the rain is over, but also because I’m in an interesting quandary about compassion in general and how far I’m willing to extend it. A high school kid came to the door tonight, trying to get me to buy the newspaper or donate to help him go to college. He rattled off the kind of history I would have expected stereotypically (poor kid, mom working hard, deadbeat dad), and after a few minutes of listening to him try to talk me into it I told him “No thanks” for the third or fourth time and shut the door in his face.
So where is my sense of compassion in a moment like this? In one way of looking at it, every such occasion is an opportunity to help, and if I really believe in helping people who are trying to better themselves (and I like to think I do, something shadowy in a Jungian sense there maybe), then I should theoretically be willing to make a donation. And yet I didn’t—partly from annoyance, partly from suspicion that it was a scam, and partly from a general rule of not giving out money at my front door. So is it an opportunity wasted, or a chance to exercise appropriate discretion? I think the answer is ultimately yes to both questions, so I’m left with a situation that regardless of my response leaves me feeling dissatisfied with it. A weird way to spend the night.
* Ozymandias, King of Ants
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