The Philosophical Spider and the
Empirical Fly
Spider – Good morning, my beauty!
The spider said to the fly that landed just in
front of her eyes, waving her shiny wings. The more she waved her wings, the
more her little feet went down in the smooth threads of the web.
Fly – What do you mean, good morning?
My morning and probably my life just ended
right now...
Spider – Don’t be a fatalist, my dear, what is life without surprises?
A red berry without flavour, an acid drop of
rain that kills the soul but not the thirst...
If you fell in my web, that must have some kind
of purpose and meaning. From my humble point of view, everything has a purpose,
even the most absurd things. Let me give you a simple example...
(Meanwhile the fly kept sinking in the silk like shiny threads, looking around for something to save her.)
Spider – ... Yesterday, the wind took my best hat away... it was my best hat because it was the one that allowed me to have the best ideas to create my art. You must know that my lineage is a succession of extremely gifted artists... My grandfather designed the contours of the first plot in history. All the authors that came after him only had to make some adjustments here and there, change a character, the scenery, some pieces of the dialogue and eventually an open ending since my grandfather invented all the closed endings there is... And my grandmother, as you surely know, was the first to paint the sky in shades of blue and the clouds in white… some ignorant, afterwards, decided to paint them in every colour… And what was the result? Now everybody says the weather is crazy and the clouds are treacherous! But they are wrong! The only thing that is mad and treacherous is the false artists and the iconoclasts that are trying to extinguish my lineage. It´s all in vain… my philosophy is undefeatable… and probably also my luck… Otherwise, how would you explain that you’ve fallen in my web precisely when I was yearning for something tasty like you?!
Well, my dear, what do you think that happened to me after losing my
hat? Did I despair? Did I think that was
the end of the world or the end of my life? No, my dear! Since I cannot fly, I
didn’t even try to catch it in the wind. I know it would be impossible for me.
So, I fabricated a completely new hat, putting inside all the ideas that I
remembered to be inside my prodigious hat and... here lies the master trick...
I left a big empty space... Why?
(This was in fact the question poseed by the fly, but her voice could hardly be heard because now the threads were getting into her mouth. In spite of that, the fly didn’t have in her eyes the look of fear or of surrender. Her little brain was following a more modest thought thread. Making simple and objective questions like: What lies below the web? How resistant are the threads? Do any enemies of the spider live around? Is there a secret passage to escape, freedom... a secret passage that even the spider-builder ignores?... Meanwhile, the spider goes on with her long speech...)
Spider – Let me tell you why! My brain is unstoppable, once I put this new half empty hat on my head I’m sure that my brain will burst with new and prodigious ideas… It is almost finished, I can’t wait to try it! Do you want to see it? Probably you’d prefer to try it yourself… but I can’t allow you that, surely you understand. A total new experience may have completely unexpected consequences. Though I’m fundamentally an adventurer, my philosophical background doesn’t allow me to take as sure something that depends on the most unpredictable thing there is, EXPERIENCE itself!
Fly – Mmmm… hmmm…. Uhmmm… goshhh…
(The fly
answered imperceptibly… the spider smiling with her most lascivious,
gluttonous, mellifluous smile… anticipating
the pleasure of the taste mixed with the pleasure of proving again (not to the
world) but to herself the unbeatable supremacy of her brain and ancient
lineage).
Spider – But I’m also the most generous being there is… so, I will put my precious hat over your head, just for a second, a luminous second before the end… I will allow you a tiny glimpse of the fabulous world that you would never understand any way, and now are losing any hope of understanding it any day…
And so, the spider rather than putting the hat over the fly’s little head knocked her with her prodigious hat. But, oh prodigy of prodigies, golden destiny of the unbreakable logic, hope of the desperate and belief of the blind, at that moment one of those fatal surprises of life opened a hole in the web below the tiny feet of the fly. In seconds, she freed her tiny hands, grabbed the hat with all her residual strength and let herself fall into the unknown void below… taking with her the avid spider who would never give up of her precious philosophical hat.
«And what was below, my dearest friends (yes, I’m talking to you, leaves of this tree where I inhabit)? No, not the void, not a protection net, not a monster from the swamps, not a flying carpet… no, no, no… There was only a calm little puddle of rain water where there lived a most peaceful frog, an animal of few words and decisive actions. Almost all his decisive actions usually began with him opening his big mouth and waiting that the fatidic game of fortune and un-fortune would bring him the reward for his natural and un-ambitious simplicity… under the form of a moth in the late noon, an un-cautious fly or a philosophical spider…
Will
you please make some silence, my dearest friends… the story is not over and all
your guesses have the eternal flaw of the moralists that spend their time
hearing stories instead of living or creating them… No, no, no… The spider
didn’t fall directly into the mouth of the frog, neither did the fly escape
immediately away… though I recognize that is a most common and predictable
ending. However, here the moral isn’t the one which is based on a certain idea
of justice, that ramshackle equilibrium between acts and consequences. Here the
moral comes from beyond, it lies on the belief that life is always better than
death, the belief that a lesson can only be learned if one is alive to learn
it, the belief that generosity is better than revenge, the belief that the light
and shiny memory of a moment of salvation can illuminate the following path
than the past rage, pain or agony… Are you following me, my dearest friends?
Because if you don’t follow me, this story doesn’t have a meaning and it wasn’t
worth to tell it or hear it…»
While
the narrator was speaking this way to the leaves of the tree, a flower bloomed
in the branch right on the side of the storyteller. Though she was just a
newborn, she opened her big curious eyes and said: «Dear storyteller, I think I
know how this story ended… may I say it out loud?»
— If you please! — The storyteller replied.
— I guess the fly freed herself from the web
threads before falling into the frog’s mouth… then, instead of flying away to a
safe place, she flew in the direction of the spider which was just touching the
frog’s tongue. The fly grabbed the spider by one of her eight legs and then,
yes, she flew away with the spider to a safe place… I suppose this is an open
ending but I just can’t figure clearly what happened afterwards…
«That, my dearest flower, is not the most important in this story… If life has any meaning, that action of generosity probably generated other actions of generosity, a chain of generosity that ultimately led to the birth of a new world………»
São Ludovino, 12/4/2013
Tai Chi, photography by São Ludovino.
Sharing the Spirit I, photography by São Ludovino.
