Lessons from the tiniest of ants
W e have these tiny ants which defy our eyesight. They run so fast and appear from nowhere. They are gone the very second after they have taken a bite at you. The bites are itchy and our skin becomes stricken with tiny red blots.
Some author in a book named these tiny creatures “No-See-Ums.” Everyone in the house uses that name and is quick to use a spray of a multi-insect killer. The irony of using this spray is that the ants are faster than the spray.
One afternoon, while I was staring at a wall in my room, I saw a no-see-ums scurrying in a zig-zag manner. I tried to watch its progress and realized that this tiny creature could disappear so quickly. This set me thinking. It dawned on me then that we have a lot of no-see-ums in our midst. They have a different way of biting us.
Depression is one of them. When depression comes, our brain becomes our enemy. If we are not careful, we may just give in to what our brain tells us. Sometimes even our young commit suicide. When the tiny seed of depression comes, the best multi-insect killer for depression is to talk to someone and not listen to one’s thoughts.
Temptations, too, can be no-see-ums. The devil coats temptation with alcohol, drugs or luscious beauties. What seem to be small sins can become bigger sins. Being envious of what the Joneses’ have can cause one to steal and eventually commit murder. In these modern times, women parading in bikinis become the attraction and bikini parties today are beginning to be accepted as okay.
Swindlers too are people who appear from nowhere, and then some naïve individual powered by greed becomes a victim of very wise conniving individuals who rob the victim of a lifetime’s savings.
Small lies too can end up into bigger lies. The lies become gospel truth. What makes matters worse is when these liars are able to convince others to believe the untruths. Wise individuals are able to pay enterprising men full of imagination to spread rumors to defame a person. At some point, we no longer can tell whether we have been cleverly manipulated by unseen hands or whether what we hear through the radio or read in print is the truth.
We do meet a lot of these kinds of no-see-ums. We just don’t notice the havoc they can raise. We must be more discerning and more observant of these little insidious insects that can cause irreparable damage to our lives.