College Zombies vs. Garden Pests : The Definitive Metaphor

The parasitic wasp Glyptaplanteles is known to lay about a hundred eggs in young geometrid caterpillars. The hypnotic dance of submission plays out on fields everywhere where this species is found. The purpose? To simply pass on its genes, to propagate, to protect and to perpetuate the genetic legacy of its paleontological existence. But it is not the act itself that fascinates but what happens after, that is going to truly shock your mind.

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The gestation process simply finds the larvae semi-developed inside the caterpillar gnawing its way out as it matures. Not too rapidly, oh no, but in precise, delectable chunks of cold evolutionary motive. First, feasting on the internal bodily fluids, then the secondary organs and finally the piece de resistance moment of an Alienesque outburst, when the larvae eat their way out of the skin and attach themselves to a leaf or tree, cozily settling themselves into a cocoonish nap, awaiting the next phase of the developmental cycle.
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It’s almost poetic.
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Now, things get a lot more interesting. The tortured, ravaged and hollowed caterpillar, instead of moving on, like any decent one night stand after the fun is over, “choose” to further their relationship and stands guard over the cocoons, literally thrashing its head at any potential predators that might even come close to harming the cocoons. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, two for the price of one, not only do you get free food but free bodyguards, all in the price of a single sting.

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What should interest us here is not the gore (as beautiful as it maybe), or the simple elegance of the evolutionary imperative but the manipulative brilliance of genes and nature in general. Not only is the caterpillar an unwilling parasitic host but during the gestation period also becomes a close and personal confidante of the wasp larvae. A sort of insectoid Stockholm Syndrome, if you will, a emotionally, psychologically binding relationship between the caterpillar and the larvae, except the larvae don’t actually reciprocate.
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This zombie like behavior has left scientist and loafing college writers completely vexed for the longest time. But I think I can see the pattern, can you? Take a moment, recall for me, if you please, the first day in your college, the first really “good” lecture or the first really “good” hang out with friends…that was the sting. After that the idea was just planted in our minds, we are proud “(enter college name here)-ites”, our college is better than other colleges, we have better teachers, we have higher marks and so on. As much as we hate to admit it, by the time we cross the first year, we’re virtual zombie defenders of our reigning administration, incorruptible icons of our college spirit, yeah, and the caterpillars were just amicable hosts, right?
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It’s not that the caterpillars are drugged or even that they have the necessary psychological development to make rational role reversals (As if! Have you seen the colors they wear! So ‘80s!) but more to do with the simple human principal that – “if you can’t beat it, join it” or in this case “protect it” after all it’s a very motherly thing to do. Like singing lullabies.

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Easy eh? Not so. But you’ll take these words and accept them too. It’s in your programming - genetic, social and self-imposed. We do what we have to too survive, the wasp stings, the caterpillar sings and we college students just go ring-a-ding-a-ding at the opportunity to praise our college. The weird thing is we don’t even care to really find out why we’re doing it and neither does the caterpillar ever find out why it’s thrashing its head about.
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The point is - Snap out of it! Take control and confront. Criticize and critique. Question and compel answers to come. Otherwise I’m sure you’d be interested to know, that as soon as the wasps fly out of the cocoon, something odd happens, the caterpillars just drop dead.
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Do the smart thing. Quit zombying around and take control. I’d have used the sheep metaphor but nature gives us so much, I just couldn’t say no to parasitic wasps and zombie caterpillars. I guess that’s in my programming.

Never Turn Back, Ever…

Ever played sea chicken? It’s simple. And healthy, I’m told. But I never thought of it that way.

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The idea is to swim to the horizon. I told you it was simple. The idea is to pit yourself against anyone and everyone. The idea is not if but when it is the other person will give up or then again it could just be you.
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We use to play it every day, my best friend and I. To swim to the horizon knowing, that either one of us was going to give up. And for the longest time we tried beating each other not knowing that we were not competing against one another. Knowing only that each stroke towards the horizon was one we will have to make back. Knowing that there is only so much strength that spite and juvenile tendencies can compel us to muster; but all the while not caring, because ‘not losing’ has always been so much more important than ‘winning’.
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That was a long time ago. Now I’ve grown up. Or at least I’d like to think so. I’ve realized that sweat and sea water taste different and that the red seaweed is just so because my nose has been bleeding for the last 10 minutes. There is no sand tumbling up in my nostrils, no acrid stench of the open swear, only the damp perspiration engulfing me as I walk through the corridors of my college. Still seemingly unaware that I’m still swimming, still playing, still losing, at sea chicken.
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It starts the same. The dare, the challenge, the project or the assignment; the lectures on being better, stronger and faster than everyone else, ironically made to everyone, knowing that there can only be one winner and so many losers. I think we’re all losers at the end of the day.
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In the course of anyone’s college years the compulsion to seek out the best and beat them is alluring to the brightest and most ambitious of the lot but the motivation of the average has always been to retain their standing as those who don’t really buy into the “rat-race”, those who feel above it all, it’s a good strategy – “I don’t care if I lose because I don’t care to play”, very non-conformist, the irony again being that its probably become the largest group.
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We sweat alongside in claustrophobic libraries eyeing the competition, muttering… “I can’t lose to him!” The frantic pencils like wavy sea lines beckoning retribution to an uncommitted offence, just the thought that there are so many of them and only so much in us. The rules haven’t changed and we’re all still playing along.
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I didn’t like that feeling. So I changed the rules.
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Chicken is no longer about who comes first or last. Who blinks and swerves, blindingly crashes off his egalitarian perched high-horse on to humble mother earth, chocking up spew to avoid bitter tears. No it’s not like that anymore. I play to win and I play against the biggest. I play, against me.
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The purpose of the game shouldn’t ever be construed as the beating of the opponent but the actualization of self. Every stroke made out to sea is one you will have to make back, that is the burden. But where will we go to? What’s so great out there that you wish to break your back getting there? And if it’s really so great, why think about coming back?
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You fight, not your friend, brother or stranger but yourself. The limitations nature and your mind have drawn for you in your head. The idea is to win. Not against anyone else but yourself.
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“Got 70/100, I will do better.”
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“Only made to the top half of the class, I will do better.”
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“Didn’t make the internship, I will do better.”
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“Can’t paint like Van Gogh…hell! Even I’ve got limitations, guess I’ll just paint for fun.”
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So in the end everybody wins and nobody cares. And that’s just the way I like it.
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Wouldn’t you?

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I just remember, to swim hard whenever I play, but play for keeps and I don’t save anything for the journey back. What’s worth coming back to?

Relics...

Memories have a way of creeping up on you, over whelming you with a cruel striking pain. As you get older and older, every thought of happiness and joy takes you only into the past. That is my human condition, the curse, the infinite emptiness of consciousness, not realizing that "what is" matters far more than "what was", whatever it maybe. I know, but I still wonder.I hold these relics in my hand, reminders of a time when, after looking at the world now, feels like a mirage in the desert of my barren broken dreams. I wipe the dust from these photographs; my pets wink at me playfully as they once did. I mutter a tune I used to sing as a child, forgetting words and key...

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"The playful pair,

Dog and cat,

Brothers in arms,

A war against calm."

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My comrades, for most of my life, riding with me into battle and at times on me, if they could help it. Sometimes on the cold winter nights I still feel them snuggling next to my feet like they did years ago. My good luck charms, following me through out my misadventures- puberty, adolescent and employment. Melding slowly into the background of my hectic life, as the years went by. Now they lie, resting and waiting, their ashes in a small wooden box, for me to join them and again ride into battle. I still remember them, and when I'm gone they will be forgotten, as will I.

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I pass the photographs into a folder, a crispy shadow of a note flutters out, a margin scribble on an ancient paper I once wrote, crumpled, experienced, bearing a message of surprise. The words, "I'm pregnant" subtly written between the lines. My sudden surprise, my suppressed yet elated joy as I paused in the middle of my conference while presenting in front of 300 people…the champagne bill that followed. My girlfriend’s message of love. Our unity’s declaration...ahh I should've married her when I had the chance, regrets...”that’s life” I tell myself. That’s life. The longing is strong, the paper reeks of that perfume I hated, I could do with another sniff, I sniff again, yes, its still there.
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I set aside the fragrant memories for a second as my eyes catch a withered old diary. A memoir of youthful righteousness and guilt that I dragged along with me through my formidable unemployed years, taking notes of all the people who'd helped me, in my naïve belief that someday I would repay them all. Over the years the pages proving just as incompetent as me in doing their job, incapable of containing the ever-increasing thanks I owed to the world, each due payment surpassing the life of the person to whom it was owed, a debt into the next world, or life, or darkness, as it maybe; I still carry it proudly.
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I look around me once more, my life has gathered at my feet, the books, the papers, the photos, the music, and the infinite accumulations of a life’s attempt at living. A rejection to time and its efforts, well...maybe a well fought failure. At this point both of us old and weary. I think to gather these memories once more, to another world, another place, another room, somewhere I haven’t been. Life isn’t over, but there isn’t enough left for me to keep the artifacts of the old ones around, as I approach the end I have no use of those memories, of things forgotten long ago.
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Or should I try to remember it all again? I don’t know, I fear I may lose this grasp of the intermitted happiness I enjoy in my memory and I see in the shadows of the future, everything I once cared for dissipating, evaporating out of my soul into nothingness and me with it.