WHY SLUGS?

This week while checking out the Bean Slug, the first thought that came to mind was, "In Nature, what can be the use of such a creature?"

This is a sneaky question because the moment you agree to think about it already you've bought into the proposition that things have to be useful to have a right to exist. However, the "Nature as teacher," or "Nature as Bible" concept, with evolving Life on Earth serving as the teaching model, or paradigm, shows us that the question's premise is as senseless as "Why is blue crunchier than green?" The "use" question is as silly as the "crunchy" one because both questions are based on false premises.

The evolving-Life-on-Earth paradigm reminds us that when Earth developed dry land, new lifeforms from the marine environment moved onto the land and began evolving. When mountains appeared, certain creatures arose to occupy the sunny sides, others the shady sides. When trees came along, lichens arose adapted to live on tree bark. When there were lichens, tiny mites living amid lichens came into being. Then came invertebrates that fed on lichen mites, on and on.

The point is that Earthly life inexorably evolves toward ever-greater diversity, with ever-more sophisticated interrelationships developing among those diverse beings, the beings themselves often producing conditions leading to yet new forms of life. The Universal Creative Impulse simply has a passion for diversity and interconnectivity. It's what She "wants," what She "does." She wants it so badly that, in my way of thinking, Her desire is worth recognizing as a Law of Nature.

At this point, the question might arise, "Of what use is this kind of thinking?" This question, applying only to the subset of Nature known as human thought, is a good one. One answer is that such thinking might be "useful" if one day you get around to asking the question, "Really, of what use am I?

Interestingly, this week, the Bean Slug turned out to be useful, after all. That slimy, almost amorphous, garden-eating little brown blob usefully reminded me that we're all -- we stars, rocks, Bean Slugs and such -- part of the Universe's evolving diversity, and that whatever form we've taken, we should feel equally welcome in the sacred Grand Scheme of Things.

If we can accept the validity of mountains and orchids and singing birds, the Bean Slug teaches that very rightly we may accept ourselves with equal magnanimity.