In a deep
forest, at the foot of an old tree, there was a big anthill. A hundred
thousand ants may possibly have lived in it. Most of them were merely workers,
who silently fulfilled their tasks – the care for the eggs and small larvae
which would transform into new ants – and the occasional leaving of the hill to
search for food and pine needles recently fallen from trees, to put another
layer onto the hill.
Thus passed the
life for the ants within the darkness of their hill. There was, however, a
certain warmth and a certain feeling of community in there.
Ants, too, possess
some minor diversity of capabilities – if not of personalities.
One of the ants
wondered how the world further out, beyond the narrow area of search for food
and needles, beyond the dominance of the tribe, would look like – and what
sense or meaning out there life could possibly have.
Thus, our ant
communicated with two other ants, how ever little ants can do that, to ask them
to come along in once climbing the tree where their anthill was located – to
once see how the whole world would look like – to possibly understand from
where they all came und what sense or meaning the whole thing would have.
On a nice day,
the three ants began their ascent of the tree.
But after only
10 meters, the two companion ants turned around. They found the forest’s wide,
empty, and lifeless spaces quite frightful. Mainly, the large dark trees
visible at different distances around them appeared threatening.
They preferred
being back in the density of their anthill, with all the other ants whom they
knew and with whom they could communicate in their own way – and where they had
the customary work, without the need for confusing thought.
Our ant now climbed
alone and lonesome further up the tree, in order to see just once the whole
world and possibly also to understand it.
After a long
climb, the dark crown of the tree was reached, with interwoven branches of
several adjacent trees. What a strange world of density – but without any such
life as that of the ants. Was there any different life at all anywhere?
Then the climb
continued beyond the dense crown of the tree to the highest branches reaching
into the open sky. There was even more emptiness around the ant than anywhere before. One could look over the forest to ever more distance, as over
a surface of waves.
But what did the
ant see in the greatest distance? It looked like an extended wall – it was a
range of mountains. This did not exist anywhere in the world of the ants. Why
did it exist up here, in the distance? How did it originate? What sense did
it make?
After the last
part of the climb of the ant, a surface of water became visible at the foot of
the mountains, immensely larger than the puddles which could form after a rain
close to the anthill. Did this immense width of the view still have similarity
or any kind of coherence with the life of the ants, possibly on a much higher
level? What was then the meaning of the lives of the ants?
A small bird –
as strange as a meteorite – came simply flying through empty air and picked for
the ant! But it had quickly hidden itself.
After this
horrifying experience, the ant preferred to rather climb down again. Arrived
down below, the ant hesitated one short moment before reentering the hill, once
more looking up the tree into that other, so much larger world – which, after
all, was also the ant’s world – or had now become the ant’s world.
The ant had to
reenter the ant-hill. There it was warm and one was connected with many
others, which all pursued their meaningful tasks.
But there was no
way to communicate with others about this excursion. They did not understand
our ant and, actually, did not want to know or care very much about the strange
larger world – into which they, however, were embedded, too. Wasn’t life in
the anthill interesting enough, occasionally exciting or dangerous and,
ultimately, meaningful enough?
Our ant became a
bit of an outsider – and had to try hard to be like all the others, to be fully
accepted.
The ants continued
concentrating on the eggs and the small larvae, which came forth to become another
generation of ants themselves, to spend the same life in the anthill as any
generation would again.
