it's getting weird!!!!

first i tried to figure out what kind of ants i had seen earlier at the megalopolis and found out they're harvester ants looking for seeds.

then i went back to look at the megalopolis (it's evening now) and noticed that the ants were practically pouring out of the main hole in the hill. i'm talking POURING out!!! it was enough to unsettle even my stomach, a stomach that is quite used to being in the presence of ants for minutes at a time and thinking about them for hours at a time. call me crazy, or a pussy, or whatever you want: it is a little unsettling, for reasons i don't know if i'd be able to fully articulate, to see the extent to which the superorganism has its clutches on that piece of land.

that's when i noticed that the superorganism was spreading itself out in two directions, rather linearly, for at least a few meters in perpendicular directions. they sort of just abruptly ended—the lines, i mean—at a point that seemed arbitrary to my naive human eyes. this made me think of dendrites and how the superorganism is wired like a fucking brain.

come to find out they use pheromone trails to establish those linear outstretchings. like, they stink up the path so that the other colony members know that it's a safe path. my god. uhhh...... yeah. it's a little far out.

then i'm just looking into other ant behaviors, and i find out that there's a fungus out there that infects ants by sending off little spores. the spores then break through the ants' exoskeletons and like........... and like............. grow inside of them and release neuroactive chemicals that tell the ants to leave their colony, climb up a tree or vine, bite down on a leaf, fucking DIE, and then the fungus, like, explodes out of their heads and sends spores down to the colony below, infecting even more ants. and i'm just like..... are we fucking serious????? the literal brain worms..... well i guess not literal.... but like.... oh my god???? what the fuck????

of course it made me think of instagram reels and tiktok. like......... if there is a fungus out there that can do mind control and make ants kill themselbves and set others on the path to destruction in the process..... it's pretty easy for my human brain, with its human dendrites and action potentials and shit.... to make the little leap to mind control at a (human) population level.............................. espeically when i read the divinicide and daliwali shit...... like uhhhhh guys? guys???? what do we do now???? what is nature trying to tell us here?

flashback

all i know is that i'm staying off those damn apps. i'm going to try to make my mind into an exoskeleton that is impenetrable to the insidious fungi that is peddled by conservative politicians—and, fuck it, liberal politicains are doing it too, but i feel like maybe they have already been compromised by the fungus, they're not the origin of the fungus, i don't think.... the origin is, like....... ayn rand. or, like, whoever inspired her. aristotle? i don't know bruh. this shit runs so deep that it's just like.... uhhh...... i'm just freaking out a little bit. but it's fine. we're going to keep calm. stay serene. this is an anthill. we're not going to, uh..... we're not trying to..... uh......... forget i said anything.