Big Ants

Nature teaches us important lessons, if only we pay attention.

So, I had a party on a Friday night, and I had to spend the following Saturday cleaning up. I was hung over from hangin out, but this is the price we pay to party hard. So anyway, I make my way outside to clean up the yard, which had Solo cups and other party trash chillin all over. I stumbled into a small ant pile, located just on the edge of the grass and the patio. Immediately, I go all “human” and get mad, thinkin “Damn, now I hafta buy some pesticide, get rid of these buggers.” But then, I took a second to look at these ants, to find out what these ants were up to.

The first thing I noticed was the cohesiveness of this ant colony. They were busy collecting food, transporting some larger insect from where it was lying dead back to the pile, maybe a foot away. They were going away at it bit-by-bit, ants this-a-way, ants marching that-a-way.

After a few moments, I turned my attention to one little guy in particular. He was busy being confused, trying to navigate his way from home to the food source. In that foot in between, Little Ant was meandering (at best) in the general direction of the grub. He would cut off into the grass, come back on the pavement, turn around, turn around again, then keep working his way in the right direction.

The interesting thing about ants is that they don’t “see” in the way we think of seeing. They feel their way through, using chemical sensory receptors to communicate with one another, as well as their antennae to feel vibrations in the air and on the ground. So, as he rumbled down the track, Mr. Little Ant was continually bumping into things - other ants; blades of grass; air, seemingly - pretty much everything in between him and the meal. Eventually, though, Little Ant got hooked up with Big Ant, a much larger and clearly older, more experienced dude. Big Ant went straight from the pile to the food, from the food to the pile, making little hesitation with his path. Little Ant began to fall in line, taking Big Ant’s lead, cuz hey, let’s face it: Big Ant was getting the job done.

Now, as those of you who have read the blog before already know, I don’t just talk about random stuff to be random. I usually talk about random stuff to make a point, and here it is: We, as people, are nothing but Really Big Ants.

We move like ants. Want verification? Try walking around a busy downtown block from 8 to 9 A.M. You’ll see people milling along in one direction or another, seemingly bumping into each other the whole way, or at the very least changing direction often enough to avoid hitting each other, all while trying to move this way or that.

We communicate like ants. We feel vibrations in the world, just like they do. Maybe our instruments are not as simple, but when we feel “good vibes,” we’re literally feeling a good vibration move through us. It may be a voice or a drum or a hug, but it is certainly a feel, a movement through us.

And we follow like ants too. But, and here’s the Big But, the difference with people is that it’s much harder to find out who the Big Ants may be. For ants, the scale of experience and intelligence is much smaller than humans, so all of the big ants are, for the most part, smarter than the little ones (except for little “Z” in Antz, shoutout to Dreamworks for that lovely film).

With people, we have 9-year-old Big Ants who can think on their toes, take charge, and make decisions. And we have 59-year-olds who are still wandering around bumping into blades of grass. We also have Big Ants who don’t have the interests of the Colony at heart. We have 18 people trying to be Queen Ant every four years. We call them “candidates.”

Are you a Big Ant? Or a Little Ant?

And, more importantly, is One Ant > The Colony?

Let’s all be Big Ants.