Fragility

Today I saw a gorgeous butterfly flailing on the concrete sidewalk outside the coffee shop. It was suffering a completely futile fight. The frail wings were failing, with the right one completely rent in two.

I related the absolute frailty of the butterfly to my newfound horror at our human frailty-- to the story line in Battlestar Gallactica. Yes- I made that leap. In the show (spoiler alert) there are humans who are actually Cylons in disguise. Cylons are machines.... with a highly developed evolution (and who had basically eradicated a huge proportion of the human population in this story line- so humans HATED them). There were people who didn't even KNOW they were secretly Cylons. These Cylon human clones had emotional issues. They were super pissed at their creator (another machine? can't remember) for making them so frail. I thought this was sort of cocky on the Cylon's part since they didn't ever die (sort of). But NOW I kinda get what the author was going for (or unintentionally going for- as art tends to do its own thing). These machines knew their potential, they knew their strength. Yet they had been trapped inside this incredibly fragile human body. How humiliating and cruel. How demeaning and torturous. How strangely relatable.

When I saw that fluttering butterfly, I thought- if that insect has any self-awareness- that is sheer torture right there. It hit me that we humans are frail. Super frail. I identified with that butterfly in ways I did not want to. I realized we are a beautiful mess of cells that somehow mostly know how to work. But one bad cell could make the whole thing come crashing down. One wrong turn, bad deed, misstep- can break us.

That's just physical. Our mental capacities for torture are endless. Our bodies might be frail, but our minds have caverns to hold trauma, pain, fears, insecurities, etc. The band Guster has a song with a line "Step on a kid, he'll grow up hating you." We're super frail.

We have very little control over it. We were born this way, with squishy skin and vulnerable minds. Sure- we can protect ourselves as much as we can- but there is NO such thing as secure. In fact in our fabulous design- the more secure we are- the more neurotic. SO if you stay at home and don't actually relate to people- you are also insane. To live is to risk is to have pain is to be vulnerable is to be frail is to be trampled. The biggest joy is inseparable from the most terrifying risks. To that, I feel like the Cylon looking at God and saying: Why the hell would you do this to me? Why is THIS your physics? Metaphysics? Why on earth would we be subject to this? IS the joy worth it?

A man in his twenties just took a picture of the flailing butterfly.

The horrors. He's smiling. Does he know he just took a picture of our souls? Does he find it beautiful? Is it not too much?

If we are so special - why are we so insignificant? If we are so important, why are we so powerless? If we are so influential, why are we a speck?

I am transcribing the information cards of family members who were killed during the holocaust. Their certificates of incarceration are tiny slivers of paper that you thumb through like you thumb through a phonebook. You don't even open it, you just feel the sensation of so many pieces of paper running along your fingertips. These people were significant to very few. Their significance at this point was really only in their addition to the heft of the book of records. They added another ounce to the scale of evil, tipped over by the tons.

The frailty of the human experience is enough to paralyze me. When I stop to glimpse it, like I glimpsed the butterfly, I can't bear it. It's too much. It's too painful. It's torture.