The Moth Effect

In the summer, my bedroom window is always open.  I removed the screen from it when I moved in, making it a large hole in my wall. Not only is it good for sneaking out, it is good for bringing the outside world in. Every night I’d go to sleep hoping an owl would stop by to visit me. That never happened, unfortunately, but I did manage to bring in a few visitors – of the bug variety. One of these guests was a “little hay-colored moth”. Though he was not nearly as lively as the bees or beetles, he had a lovable quality about him. He certainly was a “pathetic” creature, but I still saw him as “a tiny bead of pure life.” For some reason, I was drawn to this moth and hoped I was cool enough to be his friend. Weird, I know.

Anyway, he ended up being my roommate. We had some fun times together too. At night, if my phone’s screen was the only light source in the room, he’d come attack me. After that I set up his own personal lamp on the other side of the room. For a couple days, he’d always be around on some spot on the wall. I got used to looking for him. Then one day, I found him on the floor, on his back. He was dead. My most loyal companion for the past half a week had just died. I can’t say I was overwhelmed with emotion – it was just a moth after all, but I was a little disappointed. I was rooting for him, “on the side of life.” Though Woolf’s experience with a moth left her with the realization of the insignificance of life, my former roommate left me with the opposite sentiment. All life is significant. It’s true, our time on this earth is fleeting and we will be completely forgotten in centuries. But does that mean life is not significant? Our understanding of life is all relative and subject to different perspective. That moth lying dead on my floor never accomplished anything close to that of the average human. However, it lived up to its own potential and made an impact on at least one other organism. Woolf’s moth, and my own, even have a few hundred words written about them. Who knows if I’ll ever be able to say the same for myself?