Writing prompt for today – Philosophy, finding meaning for being
Looking into what life is all about, could there ever be a bigger and more important subject than that one to write about? But writing about ‘big’ things, can be done in looking at the small things in life.
For instance, I have some photos of ants, taken at various times, in various places at my place. And when I have sat on my back veranda, at times, I watch the ants going about their business, steadily going from here, to there, around in circles and back the other way, all over the place.
I can’t say what they’re doing, but would imagine each ant has a task they’re performing, finding food to take back to ‘base camp’, that would be a main task. I’ve seen ants carrying dead insects at times, and those little ants sure can handle a mighty weight, comparatively speaking.
When I see the ants working, I think about burdens taken on, and worked at, and about resoluteness, keeping on keeping on. I think about humans versus insects like these ants, and ponder the possible options if ever a creative ant came along, wanting to do something different …
Maybe that already happen, and there are ant colonies, where those who go their own way in life, can live and work in more individual ways? Perhaps those ants I see who go in circles, or head off in a different direction than the other ants, are those more individual ants, but, being human, I can’t really know …
Assumptions, ideas, imagining, playing with weird and way out notions, these can lead to interesting ways to be. Do all philosophies in life come from wondering about ways to be, and how things could, or should be to make for ‘the best way’ to live.
Do ants have the philosophy that the ant nest is the most important thing in life? I would think that philosophy is one that many humans would believe in. I personally am quite taken by the philosophy of Stoicism, 2000 years old, and still going strong … I write about it a little on another of my blogs – My Stoic Life
So the writing prompt is – Philosophy, finding meaning for being.
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 
the philosophy of the ants? ummm. don’t even get me started: there’s a wealth of material there; was there a Plato, a Socrates amongst them? Have they left any records? a plethora of poems here 🙂
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I hope so! I haven’t taken the video of those ant nests, but I will, and I’ll put it on the blog post, perhaps. tomorrow, maybe. When you look at ants, there’s an awful lot of what looks like random wandering, but there might be some quantum physics or something involved, and it’s not so random as it looks … Poem in that one, for sure! I think I have a poem with ants in my collection, Tense and Still …
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would love to read it 🙂
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Do you have a copy of ‘Tense and Still’ John? The poem I have with ants in it is about a boy who pees on some ants, and is not a very nice poem at all. Its well written though, it’s just that the content is distasteful …
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