Feeding My Ignorance

Can I just start this by saying that nowhere in this post will you find a definitive and precise answer to the question posed in the title.  The poor spiders are chosen for investigation not because they are particularly relevant, nor because they have a great and mysterious purpose, but rather because there is one that has been web building outside our kitchen window for weeks and every time I do the washing up I am staring at it!!

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The thing is (and this is the real point of the post) there are some things that we actually do NOT know the answer to -  and that was a question that popped into my mind the other evening as I was gazing at this new friend just sitting in the middle of his web - not really 'doing' anything, but at the same time he (or maybe she) was alert to any and all intursions into his "personal space" - aka the web.

Now, there are actually any number of things that could be put forward as THE answer to "What are spiders for?" however I can't help feeling that all of these fall short of getting to the root of it.  In addition many of these are only relevant to this particular spider, since most of the world's spider population has got nothing to do with the answer (except in respect of the fact that without spiders in general we presumably would not have this one in particular - so maybe they all have a part to play....)

Spiders are a reason to write my first blog post in about eighteen months.  Certainly true, but somehow I think perhaps there is more to it than that

In connection with that spiders are, in fact, the reason why I have posted the first picture in any blog post for over three years since the day my younger daughter started her university course.  (and yes - I did have to search through all the posts to see when I last put a picture in any of them - perhaps I have been lacking in the visual aspect in my writing.....)

Spiders are for scaring people - yes - lots of people are frightened of these creatures - and yes - SOME spiders are worthy of bring frightened of - but not all.

Spiders are for building webs - and very pretty they look too - especially when covered with frost or raindrops.

And so we could go on..... and yest fundamentally what would change if spiders ceased to exist.  It seems that "all" they do is sit around in their web and eat whatever has the misfortune to get caught in it and produce lots more little spiders which sit around in their webs .... and so on...

Of course, the reality is that things are much more complicated than that - even if we are unable to figure it out for ourselves.  Rather than saying "spiders have no purpose" (which is what is the obvious conclusion) we must satisfy ourselves with "I don't know what a spider's purpose is".  Now - I expect there are "experts" around who would give chapter and verse about what spiders are for.  Even they, though, probably only have a partial view of the 'real' purpose of spiders (a bit like the mice in Douglas Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - spiders may well have a purpose hidden from those experts).

This is where I need to widen it away from 'just' spiders.

We each have a tendency - that I have written about before (the link is to just one example of such prior coverage of the topic) - to think we know more than we do - or, perhaps more insidiously, to believe that what we think is the only way.  My main purpose in writing this is (I think) to break my seeming writer's block within this blog - the little spider triggered some thoughts and (unlike other occasions recently when I have been given ideaas) I felt that I needed to follow them through and get something written.

Thing is - and here we start back into the systems thinking and complexity subjects that pervade my blog - now that I have written it, it is possible that someone wil read it and as a result change their views, or have a "lightbulb" moment - or simply think "what a lot of twaddle he writes"!!  Any and all of these add to the 'purpose' of that little spider - so actually asking "what are spiders for?" is a question that can never be fully answered since every time that you come up with an answer that in itself may result in ripples that spread faqr and wide.

A long time ago I drew a diagram for someone (and now I cannot remember who or where) that consisted of two triangles meeting at a point.  The point represented "now" and the too triangles stretched into the past in one direction and the future in the other direction.  Everything that has ever happened to me and affected me up until now is contained within the "past" triangle and converges to who and what I am at this instant.  Everything that I will influence, affect, change in the future is contained in the other triangle.

This is a rather limted (but still useful) representation since "now" is forever changing - but pretend that we can freeze frame our lives for a moment.  Now is affected by everything in the past - and, crucially, every point in the "future" triangle is also affected by everything in the past.  You could, perhaps imagine the past triangle growing in size - and some might find this useful -  but for me it works as it is.

So - the "now" for me is the writing of this blog (actually a series of nows but let's keep it as simple as we can) and - yes, the spider has caused it - at least in part.  I cannot at this moment tell which of the points in my future will be specifically influenced by this particular now - but I can be sure that the spider will be part of it when it happens. Just as I have linked back to a previous blog post here - so I might link to this one in the future - further extending the influence (or purpose) of the spider.

So it is with everything in our lives - we do not truly know the purpose of anything we do - except perhaps in a very limited sense and a short time frame.  In the same way as we don't know what the purpose of spiders is - so we actually don't know what the purpose of ourself is!!  Scary?  Perhaps, but not really surprising.  I am sure that most people can think back to a time when they didnt know what they would be doing today and find themselves in a very different "place" than they might have predicted.

Its all food for thought - if not food for the spider who, hopefully, has managed to catch a few more flies.