The topic of this thought post has been rolling around in my brain for quite a while now, but only in lightning-quick flashes of thought, there and gone again–never seriously mulled over. I’ve wanted to write a post about the topic but have not done so because it could easily become a treatise of significant length (and probably should be) and how does one do justice to a topic of such import with so few characters expended and nothing but my own thoughts and experience as the “research” upon which it’s grounded?
Nevertheless, with that… disclaimer? I proceed with the title question at hand in a free-flowing unpolished, unedited thought dump:
What is the value of a life?
This question was again brought to my mind earlier today, as I was walking up and down the creek on the property here, and I decided that today was going to be the day to address it. As I was meandering through the water, at one with the stream, I came to a place in the creek where I seemingly inevitably was going to to have to step on little tiny snails to get back to where I began. The little snails were everywhere, and I guess I didn’t realize they were snails or see them as I was walking up the creek, just as I was returning from whence I came.
As I stood there, staring down into the flowing water, I knew that with every step I took, I was likely extinguishing life and likely causing pain and suffering to other creatures.
It’s a sobering thought for a sensitive soul like mine. How do I place that next foot down knowing that some creature, perhaps many creatures, will perhaps suffer and lose its life simply so I can take a step?
I love the Native American respect for life–that it’s all sacred, and we give thanks, offering our thanks to all that gives its life so that we might live. (Truthfully, I don’t know for sure that this is indeed a Native American belief. I’ve only heard it, so perhaps I’m wrong, but it’s beautiful, and it fills my soul to think of life and mother earth that way, so I adopt it as my own, wherever it came from.)
As I stood there, I didn’t really know what to do for a moment. I would’t be surprised if the number of lives lost in a single day simply because I live and breathe, move about, and work, etc., numbered in the thousands or millions. Ants, spiders, mites… any number of tiny creatures crushed in the grass or gravel as I walk to them and move on from them, or those drowned in the water rushing down my sink or shower… Those flies and moths that get trapped in the car after it’s parked and die at the base of the front or rear windshields.
A human. An elephant. An ant. A mosquito. A weed. An oak tree.
It’s all life. It’s interesting how we individually and collectively place varying degrees of value on it. As a society, we tend to value certain types of life more than others. We don’t think much of anything at all about plant life, it seems, other than keeping it beautiful to our senses and maintaining enough of it to keep the planet healthy, but it doesn’t seem to make no nevermind to us to extinguish plant life otherwise.
In the United States, we have laws against killing domesticated animals, such as dogs and cats. We recoil in horror at the thought of killing cats or dogs. Yet as a society at large, bacon arrived some years back as part of sort of pop culture phenomenon, despite pigs being extremely intelligent animals, on par with, and arguably smarter than dogs.
We (myself included) don’t often think much about squashing mosquitoes and ticks, spiders, termites, pulling up weeds, or “unsightly” vegetation that doesn’t fit our mold of what we want around us…etc… Yet each one is a life extinguished. Snuffed out.
But it’s inevitable, too, as I mentioned. Just to live and move and do what I need to do on a daily basis, life is lost in droves–because I live, they die.
It’s sobering.
There’s not really much I can reasonably do about it. It’s a simple fact: For me to live, millions, if not billions or more, will die. In the past, I’d toyed with being vegetarian. For years, I went without red meat and dairy products. I honestly don’t remember if I ever went fully veggie or vegan or whatever. I haven’t practiced that diet in years, but I still don’t like that creatures die that I might live; but it’s a fact of life. It’s the circle of life on this earth, and even if I don’t eat them, I unintentionally extinguish an innumerable number of lives every day simply by living, and I extinguish far fewer, but still plenty intentionally (mosquitoes and ticks, are a prime example).
Many will die, so that I may live.
Many will die because I live.
I don’t like the idea of placing one form of life as being more valuable or important than another, but I do.
I do, yet I don’t want to.
I swerve or slow down to avoid the rabbit darting out across the road, and I’m heartbroken when they dart back across the road at the last second after already having reached safety, only to be hit by the tremendous force of my tire and slip away into eternity.
Yet, I generally don’t think twice about killing the mosquito that is on me.
I think what has developed in my own mind, while still far from a practiced, natural reality, is the desire to value life as I imagine the Native American respect for life and Mother Earth to be: I want to accept that life is lost so that I might live and because I live, but to never be oblivious to the sacrifice of life for my sake, to never be callous with it or abusive to life, but to honor that life, care for it, even the life that I take or allow to be taken purposefully (the fish caught and killed and the carrot pulled up so that I might eat and be nourished, the tick killed so that I might prevent the spread of disease). I want to honor all life as sacred, no matter its form, state, or station.
So… there you have it. My mini treatise… my personal thoughts on the value of life. I have not re-read it, though I probably will at some near future day. I hope it makes sense and is of value to someone out there. Most importantly for me, may it be a catalyst to help me go forward, aware each day that life everywhere suffers and dies so that I might live and because I live. May I learn to be more sensitive to it but not be overwhelmed by a sad reality of living. May I cultivate a respect and honor for all life as sacred, to be cared for, and to which to give thanks when life is taken so that I might live.
Lift the World.
~ stephen
Lift the World 
Beautiful, Stephen, and just about identical to where my own thoughts and experience have taken me. I do eat a mostly vegan diet. We have a hen, and I’ll eat her eggs knowing it doesn’t hurt her, she’s not enslaved or in horrible conditions. It’s a discarded menstruation that I find tasty. She has no desire to sit on them and hatch them. If she did, they’re her eggs. But she doesn’t. So I get breakfast, and she gets the shells all cooked and crushed to replenish her calcium levels. But that’s it. One idea I came across a long time ago that has stuck with me through my philosophical journey is, “Do no harm.” I try to live by it. And then you’re placed in a snail situation. I’ve been there. I’ve also hit those rabbits. And there’s no easy answer. There was a time when I thought the whole “all life is connected” camp was incredibly hokey. But the older I get, the more I feel that we are truly the universe experiencing itself. All forms of life are one life. As if we are one giant organism and parts of us function as lungs (trees) and parts of us function as waste management (worms, fungi), with the various levels of cell complexity and executive function necessary to perform our function for the whole. Eco-systems work when species work together, maintaining balance. Plants provide on a macro level what they provide on a cellular level – nutrition from sunshine. Rabbits, deer, grazers, eat plants to keep the plants in balance and to fertilize the plants. Predators eat the grazers to keep those populations in balance. That’s their function. But what is the human function in all this? The human capacity for love and compassion and understanding, for wonder and imagination, for cultivation and creation is part of our function, in my opinion, on the planet as guardians. Extrapolating further, intentionally harming oneself (industrial meat production) is not only immoral, it’s insane. And hating/killing other humans, also insane. So, yeah. That’s what gets me through the moments after the squirrel loses to the tire. I’ve never articulated it before, but your post prompted me to work it through. Thanks for the thought dump!
Thanks, Tish and Stephen! I remember when we were growing up in Connecticut, I once caught a fish from the pond up the hill, and after seeing it struggle to live (and me struggling to kill it quickly), I thought that I might never intentionally catch/kill a fish again–not worth it! I don’t think I did, until my last area in French Polynesia, where growing/catching/killing food was part of the deal. We went out once a week to either help work in our neighbor’s farm or help them harvest fish/goats/pigs.
Also, ask RCC, sometime, about the Early American (Cherokee?) traditions he observes when he harvests an elk. Pretty cool.
On the subject of “life purpose,” I’ve learned, from our deep dive into classical education, that the ancient Greeks thought a lot about life purpose, and wrote about it. They believed everything and everyone–trees, animals, people–had a life purpose: a “telos.” A tree’s telos might be to produce nuts or fruits, to oxygenate the air, provide shade, etc. I imagine a human being’s telos might be described as “to love and be loved.”
Have a beautiful day.
That’s beautiful, Jared!