The 17-Year Cicada
| (Play this song to enhance the experience of this article.) |
Imagine spending seventeen years underground.
... you wait.
... don't wait.
... you eat.
... metamorphose?
... trying to suck it all up.
Would it be worth it?
... invest?
... no.
... infest.
... a fixed area.
... like a hut or a mansion.
Consider, then, that spending seventeen years underground means that you are guaranteed to live for those seventeen years, as you're avoiding all predators.
... egotism.
... self-preservation.
... stealing all the nutrients for yourself so that you survive, even if others don't.
... seventeen is a prime number.
... the only ones separate from the cycle, the circle.
And you're with all your friends, even if it's tough to talk through dirt.
... a society.
... a conscience?
... a collective blame.
... a revolution.
... which implies all coming full circle.
Now imagine that after those seventeen years, every one of them spent taking up the resources of the earth to stay alive, you and all your friends fly up and swarm, causing devastation to what remains of the earth you've been a parasite to.
... eat! eat! eat!
... for the motherland! for the fatherland!
... all for one and one for all!
... viva la revolucion!
... we eat until it's all gone!
Now imagine you're a human, changing all of the above to fit the life cycle and habits of a human being.
... eighteen years in education minimum.
... religion, community, resources.
... more and more food is eaten.
... we're always demanding a revolution.
... and we're eating until it's all gone.
Is there a difference?