Compassion for a Cockroach?

I never thought I would write about this...

You can see a lot if you do two important things: open your eyes and walk. A lot.

About two months ago I was walking in town and came across a scene right out of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (most of you won’t have heard of this program; it showed what goes on in the wild with epic videos and dramatic voice overs by Marlin Perkins). This show was a staple on Sunday nights in our house.

In the video below, you can see that I came across a cockroach being swarmed by ants. The ants were literally making a meal out of him.

It was impossible for me not to have compassion for this cockroach. You can see that, though he is pinned on his back, he is still kicking and fighting for life. He does not want to die. And this is a particularly grisly way to go.

Making Sense of What I Saw

This started me thinking about cockroaches and ants. I picked up some books and started my research.

The book Of Cockroaches and Crickets is subtitled “Learning to Love Creatures that Skitter and Jump.” By the end of the book I had no love for cockroaches. But I did learn a few things about them.

• They have “generalist” food habits. Oh…

• They bed down in their own shit.

• They would not survive a direct hit from a nuclear warhead. But, they do have an uncanny knack for survival.

• From a human perspective, they’re not good for much. True believers would argue they help with converting garbage to soils. Hmmmm…

• They are made of chitin, as are many insects (ants, e.g.). This abundant biopolymer is something of a miracle if one can believe the multifarious uses in food, waster-water treatment, agriculture, human and veterinary medicine, cosmetics and engineering.

• You can eat them for protein. No.

• They have been around for over 300 million years.

• There are no biting, stinging, or venomous cockroaches.

• Cockroach milk is the next super food.

  

• The Field Guide to California Insects went so far as to call them “gregarious” (adjective: of a person fond of company; sociable).

• You can buy a RoboRoach for $200.

• The cockroach seems to me to be the epitome of the selfish gene. They seem to have not other reason to be than to procreate. Presumably in their shit bed.

And, Ants?

Here’s the thing about ants. They are the most ferocious creatures on the planet. The honey badger is nothing compared to an army of ants on the march. They will destroy and devour anything in their way. And they march in such large numbers that you can actually hear them coming.

And there are more of them than any other insect by far. 15,000+ species and a biomass 20% of the human biomass. There are 20 quadrillion ants. Someone counted them. The cockroach has only 4,600ish species. But, the ant is a relative newcomer at the spry age of 150 million years.

There is an ant colony here in California called, in a wildly understated manner that only scientists can pull off, “The Very Large Colony.” The very large colony extends from just above the border with Mexico to beyond San Francisco and has over a trillion ants. Yeah. That’s very large.

The ants mauling the cockroach are from this colony. They are Argentine Ants. These ants are highly invasive and overwhelmed the native ants. They are everywhere. They honed their fighting skills in relentless boarder wars in their native Argentina with tough foes. Much tougher than what they encountered in North America after their “Jump Dispersal.”

“These ants battle ceaselessly and police every inch of their territories, right up to a precise perimeter that constitutes a band of violence,” states Mark Moffett in Adventures Among Ants. Thirty million ants a year die in the ongoing border war in Southern California between the Very Large Colony and its largest neighboring colony.

I could say a lot more, but I have something else I want to discuss. I will show this picture of the cockroach when I went to see it the next day. It is very blurry (perhaps a logical segue into my next topic), but you can get the gist of its lifeless, empty shell.

I Know How That Cockroach Felt

I have a problem with drugs and alcohol. A problem so unforgiving that I have lost everything in my life. A life I have attempted to take five times. Two were very, very close and involved a lot of blood lost, a broken face and a bleeding brain. My most recent attempt was last December while living in my car. On January fourth two Highway Patrol Officers found me passed out in my care with a flat tire, no gas, and a dead battery.

I was drunk but not enough that I couldn’t think and speak clearly-ish. They asked me what I was doing. I do not know why, but I did something I rarely do. I trusted them. And I told them my story. All of it.

Without so much as a conversation, they looked at me and said, “We are not going to arrest you today. We are going to get you help.” And they did.

I spent a month in two lockdown psychiatric facilities then moved into what is called “crisis residential.” If I leave they “5150” me again and we start from zero. I have been “5150ed” a few times.

The video of the cockroach has haunted me. And I finally realized why. I know what it feels like to be flat on your back with ants swarming all over you and you cannot right yourself. The ants are my myriad bad decisions, the pain and hurt I caused others, the pain and hurt others caused me. Swarming, biting, itching with no way to stop it. Unless…I used or drank. So I did.

I have done two stints in rehab, spent five years living in Sober Living Homes and countless AA meetings.

But, I always ended up making that choice when I got so overwhelmed with what I had done and my seeming inability to crawl out. I had two years of sobriety in which I thought I was doing well. And, in some ways, I was. But, I was not addressing my real issues. And I was lonely and I talked to no one.

I have never really opened up to anyone. So, that is why it surprised me so much when I opened up to two men who I thought were going to put me in a jail cell. Then the miracle happened. They didn’t. So, maybe there are good people. Maybe I can be one, too.

So, I am in my ninth month of treatment and care, I am feeling better than I can remember feeling. But, I am cautious. A friend once asked me what day it is. I said, “Wednesday.” He said, “No! It’s the only day.”

I live like it is the only day as much as I can, but I ruminate and catastrophize and future trip sometimes still.

But, I am getting better.

I wrote this because I genuinely want to write here honestly and thoughtfully and, perhaps occasionally, helpfully. If I didn’t show this part of my story, then nothing else will make sense.

If you are here, at this point in my post, thank you. I am going to post it now without proofreading or editing. Or, I might play the coward again.