Web of Thoughts

Last week, I was hanging out with a friend who had recently returned from a trip to Boston. As he was telling me of the numerous happenings from the trip, he mentioned the hotel that him and his friend stayed at. He described it as a nice, and clean, with everything you would expect from a good hotel. He also mentioned that there was a spider in the hotel room that had created a web right by the door to the room. Apparently, this web actually forced my friend to duck underneath it, in order to enter and exit the room. I asked him what they did with the spider, and he said that they didn't do anything, and just left it alone. It was still there when they checked out of the hotel. At first I thought this was a little odd, for most of us would have killed the spider, or at least moved it out of the room. I replied by telling my friend that he had altered another living organisms life, and because of the choice he made, the spider lived a longer life. He had the choice to kill the spider, and he chose not to. Is a sense, I told him that he played God.

This story isn't about animal rights, but instead a reminder that every day, we are given the power to change the lifespan of other living organisms, but we rarely look at it that way. I don't think we realize how powerful we are as humans? I mean, what is more powerful than the ability to alter the life of another living thing? We never see it that way though, because of our individual value systems. We value certain things more than others. We throw out garbage, that to us is useless, but to another person might be a treasure. We throw out out clothes that we no longer find wearable, but to another person might be a wonderful new outfit. Everybody has different levels of how they value things. When it comes to life, we usually value human life above all other life forms. I'm not saying this is wrong to do, I'm just stating the facts. When we are faced with altering a human life, we often become stressed, anxious and nervous. However when it comes to other life forms, sometimes we don't even blink an eye. My point is that if you look at the big picture, all living things represent a living breathing form of life, and when it comes down to it, we're just a bunch of cells and DNA that are arranged together in a unique way to give us our outward appearance.

I'm not just talking about comparing humans to spiders, but humans to other humans. When it comes to different ethnic backgrounds and skin colors, many of us forget that when you break it all down, we're all made up of the same things. Despite our common base, we all look different, and that's the beauty of it. If every person on this planet looked exactly alike, the world would be a completely different place. Not only would it be boring, but who would you make fun of? The guy that looks exactly like you? Who would you date? Every girl would look like your sister, and every guy your brother. Nobody ever thinks about this. Instead we seem to find a way to to judge others, based on the differences we see on the surface, instead of appreciating the uniqueness of the human race. So what is the point of this story? We can learn a lot from one little spider.