A white butterfly and the human condition
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    It was yesterday, 9 PM or so, dark and rainy. I was taking a smoke after dinner when a white butterfly landed on my smoking hand. I was surprised because butterflies, from what I know, are creatures of daylight. I brought my hand up to eye level to see what it was doing

    It was doing what all butterflies do - probing with its proboscis, apparently looking for a meal of sweet nectar. I don't know why this happened but a few thoughts crossed my mind...it was not the right time for a butterfly, night had fallen; my hand was not a flower and so not the right place. The poor butterfly was completely unaware of the futility of its efforts and refused to either stop probing my palm for nectar or even fly away for a better opportunity elsewhere.

    I felt a sadness for this beautiful butterfly and also a very close connection to it. Was I also like it, in the wrong place at the wrong time and all my life a futile nothingness, empty and pointless?

    I then shook my hand and the winged creature fluttered away into the darkness never to be seen again and hopefully finding a flower.

    Whose hand am I on. Kindly shake me off. Thanks.
    TheMadFool Options
  • schopenhauer1
    10k
    I felt a sadness for this beautiful butterfly and also a very close connection to it. Was I also like it, in the wrong place at the wrong time and all my life a futile nothingness, empty and pointless? — TheMadFool

    Yes we all are.
    schopenhauer1 Options
  • BC
    13.2k
    ↪TheMadFool
    Have you not previously noticed those small winged white things flying around at night? Moths?

    Insects need more than nectar; they also need some minerals which they find on moist rocks, at the edge of very little puddles, and on your hand.

    I felt a sadness for this beautiful butterfly and also a very close connection to it. Was I also like it, in the wrong place at the wrong time and all my life a futile nothingness, empty and pointless? — TheMadFool

    We are all one, somebody said. And "Futility of futilities. All is futility." Ecclesiastes. (More familiar, older wording: vanity of vanities.)

    Sic transit gloria mundi. (thus passes the glory of the world)
    BC Options
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Have you not previously noticed those small winged white things flying around at night? Moths? — Bitter Crank

    Yes I'm aware of moths. As I said my entomological knowledge isn't at expert level but I was once told that butterflies fold their wings vertically while moths keep them horizontal. The winged critter on my hand had its wings folded vertically. So...
    TheMadFool Options
  • Alan
    62
    I felt a sadness for this beautiful butterfly and also a very close connection to it. Was I also like it, in the wrong place at the wrong time and all my life a futile nothingness, empty and pointless? — TheMadFool

    I think there's no way you can know you could really have been in the right place. Too many variables involved are also ignored by us to be sure. If it was dark and rainy when the butterfly landed on your hand then how do you know it was not the right thing to do for it to survive?
    Alan Options
  • BC
    13.2k
    I was once told that butterflies fold their wings vertically while moths keep them horizontal. The winged critter on my hand had its wings folded vertically. So... — TheMadFool

    It was probably a butterfly. My knowledge of entomology could be written on only one of your butterfly's white wings. Insects = 6 legs, spiders = 8. That's it.
    BC Options
  • T Clark
    13k
    It was doing what all butterflies do - probing with its proboscis, apparently looking for a meal of sweet nectar. I don't know why this happened but a few thoughts crossed my mind...it was not the right time for a butterfly, night had fallen; my hand was not a flower and so not the right place. The poor butterfly was completely unaware of the futility of its efforts and refused to either stop probing my palm for nectar or even fly away for a better opportunity elsewhere. — TheMadFool

    This reminds me of a wonderful poem by Robert Frost - "Design." It even has a bit of the tone of your post. Even a little of the rhythm. A heal-all is a plant.

    I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
    On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
    Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
    Assorted characters of death and blight
    Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
    Like the ingredients of a witches' broth--
    A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
    And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

    What had that flower to do with being white,
    The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
    What brought the kindred spider to that height,
    Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
    What but design of darkness to appall?--
    If design govern in a thing so small.
    T Clark Options
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