The strange mayfly episode

Today, I saw a cat sitting right in the middle of the pavilion near my home. It looked so carefree and serene, full of content. I thought how come a cat, with so little possessions, can have a life so carefree and possibly happy, at least at that particular moment in time. I wonder how come, humans having so much, can actually have so little.

I knew my blog post tonight will be about this topic, so I suddenly thought of the Mayfly - an insect that lives for 1-2 days with absolutely no mouth to feed. Its sole purpose in life is to mate and then die off. Is such a life worth living - to live in order that the species will propagate and carry on? I wonder what do the Mayfly think of its life...is it full of purpose or is it meaningless as I thought it is? What could it be thinking of as it lies in the last few minutes of its life?

It's eerily coincidental that there is this insect that had been resting motionlessly in my bathroom. I thought it was dead because I really never see it moving for 1-2 days already. I told myself that it must have attained nirvana and must have died a happy death - possibly a painless one. C'mon, at least it's not eaten and smashed alive by humans. I left it alone.

It's eerie because when I did some research on Mayfly (to type this blog), I found that a mayfly looks like this:

It's characterised by 2 long hind legs, with an 'arched' body. So guess what? When I went back to the bathroom and looked closely at it, it's exactly the same! I went to nudge it a little and am surprised to see it inch a little away from my fingers. I guess it's still alive...though weak enough not to fly away.

Things around us work in strange and mysterious way. Perhaps it's time for me to look inward and ponder upon the meaning of life. Do we need so much to be happy?

Think about it.