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What Ants Can Teach Us About Empathy
The lie of natural selection overlooks the truth of survival through cooperation.
Feb 26, 2024
The Bible and Quran both say that Solomon could hear the speech of the ants. This might be the next best thing: New research shows that when Matabele ants are hurt, “injured workers are carried back to the nest where other workers treat their wounds, by licking and grooming the wound during the first three hours after injury.”
They apparently know which wounds are infected, since “infected wounds are treated more often than sterile wounds.” The practice saves lives with “the targeted use of antimicrobials.”
The lead researcher on that study toldThe Washington Post that “the solutions these ants came up with should be translatable to some extent to our own system.” Another scientist said the study “speaks very strongly to the power of evolution at both the societal and individual levels,” adding, “Societies succeed when they protect their most vulnerable.”
If that study ever does lead to new ways of healing humans, it will be because of this simple act of empathy—and what it revealed about the power of empathy in others.
Our economic goals are almost always framed as individual: my wealth, my security, my success. So are our spiritual goals, for those who have them: my salvation, my enlightenment. That’s how “mindfulness” became the handmaiden of corporate consumerism. But we’re a collectivity, not just a cluster of random individuals. The lie of natural selection overlooks the truth of survival through cooperation.
I would say that, though. I’m the guy who says “we” and “us” when asked his pronouns.
That study only happened in the first place because the lead researcher accidentally ran over a swarm of ants. “I immediately got out of the car to check how the ants were doing,” he told the Post:
It was a massive mess, ants running around frantically. But they were also looking for injured individuals, picking up and carrying back those still worth saving. To my surprise, they left behind the ants that were too heavily injured. They were performing a type of triage.
He stopped the car out of concern for the ants and saw them rendering care to each other. If that study ever does lead to new ways of healing humans, it will be because of this simple act of empathy—and what it revealed about the power of empathy in others. The wisdom of it all is almost… well, Solomonic.
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A Reflection on Moments of Becoming
I am continually confronted with the abstract statistics of war dead—in particular, children, each of whom was in the process of becoming himself or herself until they became the tactical victims of a geopolitical game about which they knew nothing.
Dec 31, 2023
“Red Rover, Red Rover, let Bobby come over!”
I can feel the wind on my face, the gravel at my feet—oh so minutely, but with enough realness to pull me back seven decades, into one of the earliest moments of my becoming.
For some reason I find myself, at age 77, pondering such moments—not simply random memories from childhood but, as I say, moments of my becoming: openings of awareness that were entirely unexpected and utterly personal and thus, oh so quietly secret. This is me?
Everyone matters. And we all have something valuable to contribute to our collective understanding.
I think my sudden fascination with such moments shimmers beyond me. I am continually confronted with the abstract statistics of war dead—in particular, the murder of children, each of whom was in the process of becoming himself or herself until they became the tactical victims of a geopolitical game about which they knew nothing.
“Red Rover, Red Rover... ”
I was in first grade and found myself surrounded by a wondrous, almost perplexing joy. This is really happening to me? I was in the middle of a collective game—fully a part of it—surrounded by other six-year-olds, boys and girls, being called to run back and forth, to break through the “walls” of other kids holding hands. I almost wanted to cry I was so happy. The feeling was inclusion. Had I never experienced it before?
In retrospect, what I know is this: My life’s earlier years were messed up. Only as an adult did I start learning the facts of this narrative, but they amounted to this: After my sister, who was (and is) two years younger than me, was born, my mother had severe post-partem depression, or what was called at the time a nervous breakdown. A beloved older sister had just died, as I understand it, and she wound up being hospitalized, where she received electro-shock therapy, which may well have simply made matters worse. And she had a newborn and a two-year-old (me))!
Her family stepped in to help. Dad was booted out of the apartment and several of her sisters moved in and took care of the newborn as Mom recovered. As for me, I was moved to an aunt and uncle’s house. I was just a little over age 2. I have no memory of any of these specifics. All I have are memories of being slightly older, after Mom recovered and our family had pulled itself back together. What I remember is a relentless fear of abandonment: Mom and Dad go out, we’re left with a babysitter, and I wake up at night crying in terror. Where’s Mommy?
At age five, when I start kindergarten, I also remember screaming and crying, once again fearing abandonment as I’m dropped off at school. Mostly I remember hating kindergarten—and feeling left out, watching other kids play and make stuff while I sat in sulky solitude. I remember pushing a classmate down, giving him a nose bleed, and having to sit in punishment under the teacher’s desk. Ah, kindergarten!
All this is the context for my “Red Rover” moment: a six-year-old suddenly aswim in collective belonging. The significance of the moment, as I think about it so many decades later, feels large, even though it was no more than a passing flicker. I went on with my life. But when I ponder who I am, at age 77, the moment still resonates.
And then—jumping ahead—Bobby at age 10, living a boy’s life: biking, baseball, snowball fights, war. Nothing, nothing, was more fun than playing war: pretending to kill and, perhaps even more dramatically, pretending to die. Bang! Shot in the chest. Ah-h-h! But of course dying is no big deal if you can bounce back up and die again or kill again or scurry home because it’s time for dinner.
But there was also a not-so-playful side to playing war: getting into an actual fight, often with a friend, maybe even your best friend, when anger suddenly overflows the pot. It happened all the time—to me and to pretty much everyone else I knew, on the playground, at a friend’s house, wherever.
One day I had a punch-out with a friend after school. Then I came home, perhaps with bruised knuckles, a torn pantleg. As I entered my yard, I felt a swoosh of overwhelming awareness: Fighting is stupid! Maybe it was part of kid life, but it was utterly valueless. I got hold of myself, calmed down... and decided I would never fight again. This wasn’t a flimsy, breakable rule I decided to impose on myself—you know, try to behave better—but something much, much bigger. I felt enwrapped with awareness. In that moment, I claimed at least partial agency over my own anger, and eventually beyond that: over the collective anger that had a grip on so much of the world. I decided I didn’t want to be a part of that anymore.
I’ll mention one more moment of becoming, even though I still don’t fully understand its meaning. I was 13. Mom, Sis, and I went to a movie on a Saturday afternoon—a long-forgotten movie called Imitation of Life. I have no idea why we went to that movie. It wasn’t funny or cowboy-and-Indian exciting. It was a social drama about, for God’s sake, race: a black woman who works as a maid, whose daughter is light-skinned enough to pass as white and chooses to do so, separating herself from her mom. Actually, this is only part of the plot. This issue is stirred into further drama. Toward the end, the mom dies and the daughter is overwhelmed with regret, which isn’t resolved. The End.
I have no idea if the movie was any good, or what I would think of it now. All I remember is that I found myself unrelentingly troubled by it—in a way I couldn’t talk about or explain. Then, as we drove home, we encountered minor car trouble and Mom had a stop at a garage. As we’re sitting there waiting for the work to be done, a thought enters my mind. I tell no one, of course.
And the thought is beyond strange. It seems to have no relationship to the movie per se, though apparently it emerged from the troubled confusion I felt when it ended. Even now it makes no sense. I silently told myself: I’m a genius.
Huh?
I think what the revelation meant had nothing to do with being measurably super-smart but rather, somehow, uniquely aware... of God knows what. I certainly felt clueless in that moment. In retrospect, I think what this flicker meant was more on the order of: Everyone is a genius. Everyone matters. And we all have something valuable to contribute to our collective understanding, including me. Including you.
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Making Art Means Participating in the Human Collective
Art, or the effort to create art, is always aiming at something, though usually not something obvious.
Sep 03, 2023
As I trek toward the Great Unknown, as life’s struggles seem to intensify, some odd questions keep recurring.
Art—what is it again? Why does it matter? How does it matter? What does it mean to be “good” at it?
That last question, in particular, can cut like barbed wire—especially if you’ve been swimming all your life in a sense of mediocrity, having learned that the Temple of Art is the home of the blessed elite. There’s “Mona Lisa,” then there are scribbles and doodles: baby stuff. End of discussion. Your grade is C-minus. Welcome to consumer culture.
A mantra popped into my head: If it’s fun, it means it’s alive.
So why do I care about art? Indeed, why now? As I grow older (by which I mean “old”), I refuse, refuse, refuse to retire: to quit writing, to quit believing I’m doing something that matters... to quit believing that humanity is collective and, at the deepest levels of our being, we all participate in this collective. This is what I call art, even though I don’t know what I mean by that. Or at least I don’t mean something that’s simple and certain, or even particularly serious—at least not in an academic sense. Serious can be fun.
Yeah, really. This is a relatively new bit of awareness for me, for which I thank a number of friends, who have, you might say, pulled me out of a trance of certainty. In particular I thank Dawi, a poet who showed us some of the recent drawings he’s been doing. They woke me up. I remembered the feel of a drafting pen in my hand. I loved to draw, once upon a time—to scratch and scrape a fine penpoint across paper, to let the lines wiggle and squirm and dance. Yet somehow they were mixed with precision. Sometimes a face would emerge. What mattered was that my childhood emerged.
Was it any good? I felt it was as I drew, but it never was good enough—not for a drawing career of any sort to emerge. And eventually I set the pen aside, or mostly aside. I stopped drawing on a regular basis. I knew I wouldn’t find fame. I wouldn’t make money. I needed a serious career and this wouldn’t be it.
But after Dawi’s art woke me up, and I thought about all the time I waste in the present moment, I started scribbling again, because why not? Take my time. Enjoy. I started splotching random colors on the page, mixed with wiggling lines and black and white checks. I found myself immersed once more in childhood wonder. A mantra popped into my head: If it’s fun, it means it’s alive.
And it struck me that this is art. This is how it should be defined. This is how it should be taught.
But there’s more: Art, or the effort to create art, is always aiming at something, though usually not something obvious. There’s ache and awe in the creative process, quietly present with the fun. When I begin a project, when I feel it start to matter, I think of it as a reach into humanity’s collective, evolving whole.
Careful! This gets quickly dangerous. Here’s where I want it to be good—you know, objectively good. Unique, original, special. That wanting can quickly kill the art, yet somehow—paradoxically—it’s part of the process.
And then Alison came for a visit: my daughter the stained-glass artist, who lives in Paris—who designs, creates, and installs stained-glass windows for people. She also writes poetry. She came to Chicago to see her dad, to connect with lifelong friends, and more. She has a connection with a man who has worked in stained glass all his life, who’s ready to retire. He has an enormous collection of stained-glass pieces that he accumulated over the years, including church-window fragments. Some of them are stunningly beautiful. They can’t simply be left to gather dust. Maybe a new home is possible.
And after Alison spent a day at his studio, she and I—can you believe it?—talked about the nature of art, the nature of creativity. She made an interesting distinction as she talked about her stained-glass work: the difference between shards and fragments.
Shards are pieces of broken glass—perhaps violently broken. She feels freer to give them new life. Fragments, on the other hand, preserve a closer link to their original whole. They may be part of a broken church window or some other historic work. Both are often beautiful and radiant, but the less broken they are, the more they still communicate what they once were and the less free she feels to reshape them.
This got my mind spinning. I don’t work with stained glass, but I couldn’t stop thinking about fragments of a shattered church window, and imagining myself creating something with them—mixing art and God, you might say. Mixing fun and spirit. And it felt like the essence of creativity.
When I taught writing over the years—at elementary, high-school, and college levels—the essence of my message to the students, regardless of their age, was: We are all writers. We all have our own voices. Learning to write means finding that voice.
And those voices, I now realize, are full of both shards and fragments: craft and spirit. This is art, regardless of genre. Art is fun. Art is alive.
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