Metamorphosis

          I often wonder if being human is just a kind of larval state, a crude undulating journey in our fleshy coverings. Sometimes we’re like caterpillars, gorging along from leaf to leaf with no concept of purpose or what awaits us, going through the motions of primal programming—eat, move, avoid predators—until nature compels us to do something different, to quit eating, quit moving, quit avoiding predators, and wrap ourselves tightly in a threaded ball to wait for what’s next.

          Sometimes life doesn’t give us leafy green pathways. Sometimes it gives us degradation, horror, and gore, and we grovel like maggots in the filth. But the end is still the same. We age, learn as we go from whatever experiences we’re given, hopefully recognize our failures and immaturities, and then we wait, all of us, for the inevitable end. We wait to see what’s next, wait to see if maybe when we put off our larval state, we emerge as something more, something interesting and magnificent, something beyond the slimy creature working its way through the ugliness of this beautiful world.