Smashing Bugs

Once when I was an undergraduate I was in a backyard sitting at a picnic table reading Messiah's book on quantum mechanics. A bug landed on the page and I instinctively swiped him off, killing him completely, leaving nothing but a thin red smear across the page.

Suddenly I realized: my God, what had I just done? I had obliterated a life without hardly even thinking about it. I had reduced it to essentially nothing.

I still think about that when I find a bug where I'd rather he not be. (I still have Messiah's book, too.) Sure, I kill my share, but often I'll simply coax them onto a piece of paper and take them outside. (And yet, I have not committed to vegetarianism.)

So there is something becoming in this video of Obama brushing a spider off his shirt:



In my book this speaks highly of his as a person.