PopcornJackTerry

You gotta feel for the moths. I’m pretty sure at no point in their evolutionary process did they raise their hands – okay, wings –  and say “Yeah, we’re good with being the bastard stepchildren of butterflies.” Think about it. Butterflies are these beautiful, lithe creatures that everybody “oohs” and “aahs” about on a summer’s day. Moths come out at night with seemingly the sole intention of flying directly into your campfire. Butterflies have these beautiful pupae that they spin, a thing of beauty as if designed by Frank Lloyd Wright by way of Gucci. Moths make cocoons, what look remarkably like the babushkas of the animal world. Finally, I have personally made several trips to the Butterfly Conservatory in Key West. Not only have I never been to a Moth Conservatory, I have never even heard of one. Although to be fair, they do have some moths at the Butterfly Conservatory. They are big, fury, scary looking creatures and I can see why no one would pay admission to look at just them.

Of course, one of the most popular and enduring images of the butterfly is the process of transformation. It is a legacy that has a tight grip on our imagination, and serves as a useful metaphor for how we can adapt and grow in our own life. There’s probably not a situation we come across in life where the metaphor of the caterpillar changing into the butterfly can’t be applied. It certainly is an amazing act of nature, but what fascinates me the most about it is how we anthropomorphize (a fifty cent word if I ever saw one) this act, as if the caterpillar/butterfly had any choice in the matter.

I haven’t ever done an autopsy on a caterpillar, but I think it’s a safe guess just by looking at the size of it their brain stem is a little too small to be able to have the rational thought of “You know, this walking around milkweed plants and eating ALL the time is pretty sweet, but you know what would be even sweeter? If I put my body through a ridiculous changing process and turned all 24 of these legs into a couple of pairs of wings. Man, think of the things I could do then!” Think about it. That’s how a lot of people look at their lives. “Man, this sucks! I wish I could just be like a caterpillar, go to sleep for a week, and wake up to a whole new life.” Caterpillars don’t change because they want to. They change because they reach a point in their lives where they have to. Change is what is needed for them to survive.

Of course, another part of the story that isn’t quite true is the belief that the caterpillar – now at this stage in its life technically known as a chrysalis – is asleep while all this is happening. Not just no, but hell no. You think it’s tough going to the gym an hour a day three days a week? Try working out 24 hours straight for about 10 days or so. And Carl the Caterpillar here isn’t just going to the barber and saying “take a little off the top.” This is an extreme makeover unlike any you or I have ever seen. Take the greatest makeover you have seen “before” and “after” pictures of. A person loses a crap ton of weight, they completely change their hairstyle, they even have plastic surgery done, the works. If you look at both of those pictures, you’ll find something – the eyes, the way they stand, the way they walk, something – that will make you say “Holy crap, it IS you!” Let me tell, when Carl the Caterpillar becomes Bob the Butterfly, there ain’t know way of telling who he used to be, no matter how well you knew him. The deeper and darker question is: does Bob the Butterfly remember any of the things Carl the Caterpillar knew?

Remember how I said ten days? That’s butterfly days. The Monarch Butterfly is one of the longest living butterflies out there, and their lifespan, in a word, sucks. They’re a caterpillar for two weeks, a chrysalis for 10 days, and then a butterfly for anywhere from two to six weeks. That’s natural lifespan, which means it doesn’t include predators, bad weather or dumb luck. So if that butterfly is lucky enough to die of old age, those 10 days represent almost 12 percent of it’s life. What looks like overnight to you or me is the equivalent of 8 or 9 years.

“But wait,” you say. “That’s impossible. If they live and die so quickly, how do they migrate to Mexico every year?” That’s easy. It’s only one generation out of every four migrates. Monarch Butterflies go through four generations in a single year. The butterflies you see in May aren’t the same ones you see in July, and those aren’t the ones you see in September. The butterflies that migrate are the great-grandchildren of last year’s migration. Three generations are born, live, change, mate and die during the course of one late spring to early fall. The fourth generation feels that its getting cold and says “screw this, I’m out of here.” They fly south and hang out where it’s warm until they feel the urge next spring to fly back home. There they lay their eggs and, exhausted, die.

If it sounds like I’m taking a hatchet to this amazing phenomenon and trying to deem it unworthy of being a great metaphor for how we live, it’s actually quite the opposite. I think by stripping away the imagery we have created for the story and look at the reality of it, it becomes a far more powerful analogy:

1) Change doesn’t happen just because we want it to; many times it happens because it has to. It is the law of nature, giving us a chance to survive.

2) Change is never easy and painless. If is seems like it has been, odds are it hasn’t finished happening yet.

3) Change involves sacrifice, both physical and emotional. If we bring all of our past into our future, how much change have we really made?

4) Change takes time. Nothing happens overnight, not even overnight successes. One day of change is only the beginning; a lifetime of change may still not be long enough. Expectation is a purely human invention: we expect change to happen instantaneously because we want it to. Nature has been making changes for millions of years long before we came around. It knows how long it takes.

5) Life is much shorter than we think it is, so spread your wings in the sun when you can. And if you’re lucky enough to get the opportunity that so many others don’t, to live longer, to fly farther, to see and do more, do not squander it, because you are not doing it simply for yourself.

You live for those who came before you, and you live for those who will come after you. Honor the past, prepare the future, and make the present a glorious tribute to life.

Today’s soundtrack. If you’ve been on Facebook this afternoon, you may have realized I had a problem finding a selection. I came up with two. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a link to the first one, but if you click here you can hear it while supporting a friend’s band all at the same time. The second one may or may not really have anything to do with the blog; I only speak enough French to know that “papillon” means butterfly. But I love the music and it reminds me of carefree days and dream filled nights. Click here to listen.