if you learn to love bugs with all your heart the world will feel half as hostile and a thousand times as big
Theres a sentiment I'm noticing in the tags that I'd like to address. I dont think learning to love bugs with all your heart means forcing yourself out of discomfort you have with them overnight. It's about observing a different sort of being going about its life and deliberately trying to reframe your observations through a sense of wonder and delight. It's about cultivating a positive interest and curiosity for their ecology and behaviors. It's especially about trying to uncouple the value we find in them from how 'convenient' they are to us; to face head on the part of us that wants to assign moral evil to another organism who just happens to live life in a way that is not harmonius with ours. You can love insects in this way and still recognize your own health and safety needs. We are animals living side by side within a biosphere. This is how it is, sometimes.
I think this is important to cultivate because, if you are alive at all, you are coming into conflict with countless other people and things that dont owe you an apology for their existance and needs. If you are alive at all, you are encountering countless other people and things that harmful bias and personal discomfort have made repulsive to you. This is about bugs, but its also about way more than bugs.
It's hard to explain to the uninitiated that you can just go for a walk just about anywhere with a bit of green (and sometimes even in the heart of a city) and find like a dozen neat little unique guys if you're patient and observant.
People get really into bird watching but here's a secret: bugs are WAY easier to find than birds and they let you get a lot closer.
Try to approach the world with wonder and curiosity rather than fear and revulsion. Bugs are a great place to start.
