I really feel like I’m getting it.
I’m starting to really get it, like, in general.
The whole, just, like, life of it all.
I think it’s starting to really, finally crystallize.
And maybe that’s just the edible hitting. But like.... I think it’s also just true.
When I walk through the woods, I feel like I have relationships with all the trees and all the ants underground. I never realized how many anthills there are. They’re more everywhere than you could ever imagine.
winterize
Mosquitos are everywhere, too, and I keep getting bit by them, a few times a day. What's up with them? What are their mating rituals? Do they sleep? Are they eusocial or do they just do their own thing? Clearly they're doing something right.
mating ritual
My god. I’m getting fucked on by mosquitos right now. Big, itchy bite to my left forearm, one to my left shin, one somewhere else that I can’t place yet. They're the super-itchy kind, the kind that starts to freak you out because you know you can’t itch it but what else are you supposed to do with the discomfort? I don't even know, man. Keep seeking knowledge and spinning webs, I guess.
That’s what to do when the mosquito bites bother you. Just keep talking to yourself.
spin
A couple months ago, I was in San Francisco thinking about butterflies in earnest for the first time in my life. I learned that there’s quantum mechanics happening inside them. Metalloreceptors and cryptochrome and shit. And moths being tuned to the moon or whatever.
And then I got into ants, which you've mostly witnessed, aside from my private moments with anthills which will stay between me and the ants——if they were even observing me in any way.
But isn’t it true that the mere act of my observation must have changed the whole system in some way? Even if we don’t know it yet, I’m sure the ants have some kidn of quanmtum sensors as well. As we all do.
And, uhhhhh, if you disgagree with me then i would just direct you to the genome of the JE2 strain of Staphylococcus aureus, where over 700 of the species’ ~3000 genes are said to make something called "hypothetical protein," as in, "we don't know what this is for."
We don’t know shit. So let me cook.
Oh, my other question is how do compound eyes work? I was looking at a moth in my bathroom last night and saw how fucking crazy its eyes were, and I was like, "My god, it must be looking at me in an insane way right now, one that I probably will never be able to fully comprehend, not unless I meditate for hours on end to search for the memories of my past lives as moths. And butterflies."
invitation
Can you look those things up for me? The mosquito stuff, and the compound eyes thing?
Go ahead. This is your chance to do it. Find out what is the deal with mosquitos. If you even have mosquitos where you are. And if you don’t, I pity you. Truly. To not know what it’s like to get bit by something, to feel so much discomfort from something so tiny, a discomfort that you know you can only treat by leaving alone.... I’m sorry you can’t experience that, hypothetical reader.
find out