Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
While cutting my lawn a few days ago, I innocently stepped backward into some shrubs as I turned the mower. Suddenly the backs of my legs were on fire like a hundred white hot needles were jabbing me. From my achilles’ tendons all the way to my thighs. Holy sh*t!
I immediately let go of the mower and started rubbing my legs imagining that I’d stepped in an ant bed (we have a few scattered around). The pain was extraordinary as I ran toward the hose and quickly blasted myself with the sprayer. The cold water immediately made a difference but I had to keep blasting it and rubbing. As soon as I let up to see what was going on, the fiery needles started stabbing me again.
After a few minutes I was able to turn off the water. I looked myself over. No ants were visible, nothing was on me. I walked slowly back to the scene of the crime and saw the perpetrators: yellow jackets! They were zipping angrily about near the bush I had backed into. On the ground below I saw a hole from which some were crawling. I ran back to the hose for another pressure wash to relieve the still throbbing pain, then into the garage to get something to mark the spot where the nest was.
Long story short: I was in agony for hours. I ended up with seven stings altogether, two on one ankle, three on the other and two more higher up my legs. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go to the ER. I was able to ice all the stings, take benadryl and ibuprofen, and elevate my legs. After about two hours the pain went from intermittent hot needles to intolerable itching to an overall burning soreness. I didn’t sleep well that night, either.
When things like that happen it reminds me how fragile we human beings are. Seven yellow jackets (or maybe fewer, apparently they can sting multiple times) come at me and in a matter of seconds I’m essentially incapacitated for the day. Imagine if I had been unlucky enough to be stung twice as many (or more) times. I could have ended up in the hospital, or dead. Not being a drama queen here, but people do sometimes die that way. Even without possessing any allergies to insect stings. It’s a little scary but definitely true: if enough of them nail you, you could kick the bucket.
And that made me think, damn. What a crappy way to go. To think of all the things we humans overcome in our lives: illness, stress, sometimes violence or abuse, broken bones, auto accidents. Child birth. We survive and heal and march forward bravely. Then a bunch of nasty flying things get pissed at us because we accidentally step on their nest and wham, it’s all over.
So let’s just say it: Mother Nature is mean. The natural world is turbulent, usually unpredictable, and completely indifferent to our wellbeing. And I’m not just talking about the kind of contact one might have with the wild when one goes backcountry hiking or camping. Sure, if you put yourself out there, you could have a fatal run in with a bear or a mountain lion. Or a hoard of yellow jackets.
But you could also simply walk out into your driveway to pick up the newspaper and be struck by lightning. Blizzards might occur; tornadoes could arise. Heatwaves. Flash floods. Earthquakes. Landslides. Here in Florida a number of years ago a man disappeared (along with his bedroom) into a sinkhole.
To me, as a human, this just seems so barbaric. So ominous. Our brains have evolved for countless centuries and we have subdued the natural world in seemingly so many ways. We grow crops, manipulate waterways, and harvest fuel sources from under oceans and mountain ranges. We’ve defeated pathogens, invented flying machines, and our cities and nations rise proudly into the skies and across the land, hosting our lives in climate controlled shelters. But we still have to acknowledge, however infrequently, that we really aren’t fully in control. Of really anything.
Our lives and civilization exist, almost entirely, between spankings from our environment. And that’s true for all life forms. The dinosaurs were doing just fine, thank you very much, before BAM! A friggin’ meteor blasts into the planet. Living things adapted to ice ages over eons and eons only to have a volcano somewhere bust loose and change the climate. Again. Native peoples lived simple lives minding their own business until shiploads of imperialistic bastards arrived to plunder, murder, or enslave them. Or at least release microbes into their surroundings. The oceans receded; tectonic plates shifted; mountains burst from the earth’s crust. And critters everywhere ran for their lives. Including homo sapiens. It was, and is, a jungle out there.
It’s still happening today. Certainly no one can deny the coronavirus pandemic has taught us some lessons. Whether it emerged naturally or was helped along by lab experiments, there’s no denying it showed a lot of us that mankind and science are still the whipping boys of the natural world. We are simply powerless when we square off with Mother Nature.
So it’s really a wonder that any of us are here at all. Of course, the types of natural disasters I described a few paragraphs ago are relatively rare. And pandemics don’t come along every year. It’s easy to get lulled into thinking we’re in charge since we have big brains and rest at the top of the food chain (at least among the life forms we can see).
Still, I recognize our existence is essentially allowed by nature. We exist at her whim. When she’s happy, we’re happy. When she decides to really break bad, well, we’re toast.
That realization, as sobering as it is, is also weirdly optimistic. Because it’s hard to argue that as a species we haven’t screwed things up here on the home planet. Every time I see a wooded area cleared for another set of mini warehouses or a new gas station, I can’t help thinking about the possums, raccoons, and squirrels who lived there. What are they supposed to do?
Not to mention all the species who are going, or have gone, extinct. Or the destruction of the Amazon. That plastic trash island floating in the Pacific. People dying of starvation in the third world. The fact that there is a third world.
These are major screw ups that suggest we are not so good at managing things. So knowing that our world could decide to simply cast us off the way one’s body might reject a transplanted organ somehow makes me feel better. It means there’s a force that can put us in our place. Something that can stop our thoughtless squandering of our beautiful planet and its critters; that can prove to us we’re just little specks with Napoleon complexes.
We think we have dominion over the planet and that we make rational decisions about what’s best for it. And that we can exert influence over it. But we can’t. Mother Nature knows that and she’s watching us. We can only hope she won’t slap us too hard upside our heads.
And if she does, well, it’s probably because we deserve it.