The Bee

On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

Chuck Palahniuk said that. He wasn't the only one person that understood that. Carl Sagan visualised that same notion by focussing the lens of the spacecraft Voyager onto where Earth was and snapped that iconic photo known as 'The Pale Blue Dot'. This country, the land you fought for, the things you hold dear, that beautiful sight you see, that someone you hate, that house you built, that car you drive. In the grand scheme of things, insignificant.

Or is it? Let's think about it. That spaceship itself, at that very edge of our solar system, that travelled that many lightyears, recording and beaming information, that snapped that photo of home so far away, came from that supposedly insignificant pale blue dot.

Amazing isn't it? So what is insignificance then? Come to think about it, what is significance? Van Gogh was never popular when he was alive. Only after he took his own life, and his brother Theo's help in going around promoting his work did he ever achieve his popularity.

Now, let's consider another painting, by an unknown artist, an amateur who paints out of his love for it. His painting is cherished, loved and admired by his loved ones and was hung in the living room, over the fireplace, and was the subject of conversation to anyone who came about seeing it. When he die, the painting moves into obscurity, stuffed into the attic for years gathering dust and on one fine day, sold at a yard sale for a couple of dollars.

Is it worth doing things hoping for a return, one day, eventhough you yourself might not be alive enough to see the lights of it?

Is it worth doing things that lasts a short moment, enjoyed and love, yet with sure knowledge that after a while, it will all be gone and forgotten?

That bee lived its life and died in my bedroom. An insignificant insect dying an insignificant death. Yet through some logic his dead body was gorgeous enough to be photographed and shared with the whole world. Amidst all that, that empty shell that was itself, the insect, invoked the mind of a human being, to question on things such as mortality and the pursuit of living a life.

Therefore, is it silly for me to say that his shell of a dead bee, is perhaps as significant as that photo Voyager 1 took 20 years ago, millions of lightyears away?

Perhaps.

And thy Lord taught the Bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in (men's) habitations; Then to eat of all the produce (of the earth), and find with skill the spacious paths of its Lord: there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: verily in this is a Sign for those who give thought.

68-69, An-Nahl (The Bee)

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Nikon D40 kit + reversed Helios 44-2 58/2