Disgusting Things Like Insects
Insects used to set me off. Anything along those lines, really. But what actually makes a thing disgusting? Step back and look at it plainly and you find that nothing is, on its own. The reaction got taught to us. Somebody, somewhere, flagged a thing as yucky and we filed it away. Run the same question in reverse: what makes something beautiful? If you love it, you tend to call it beautiful. And everything is just atoms, which you can keep breaking down until you reach vibrations. A vibration isn't good or bad. The only time it matters is when it can harm something living, whether that's you, me, a tree, an animal.
So why sit down and write about repulsive things at all? Blame a dream. Last night I dreamed about bugs. Several kinds had crawled into something I was using, and in the dream a group of us stood there plucking them out one by one. Consider how many varieties of bug exist, each one a small feat of engineering. Can you find them beautiful? Maybe you could, if someone had shown you how as a kid. My own gut response to most insects has always been ick, with a few exceptions: butterflies, moths, ladybugs, dragonflies. Those strike me as tiny wonders, and they pull off tricks we never will. Ask yourself whether you've ever spun a web.
Now for something messier. Some animal, a cat most likely, had deposited a grayish blob on my porch that looked like guts and worms tangled together. My grandchildren are small and they play out there, so I wanted it gone before one of them found it. I'll confess I took the easy way out. My son had a rubber glove in his pocket, so he scooped it up and tossed it over the railing. I had no glove of my own. What I did have, though, was composure. No fit, no horror, none of the carrying-on I would have put myself through years ago.