Most people probably know something about the monarch butterfly. Many can even recognize one by sight, despite the myriad of categories of butterflies that exist.
Perhaps the most amazing fact about these delicate creatures, their migration cycle, is also known to most people, in general terms. I know that I was aware of the prodigious nature of their travels, from points as far north as southern Canada to central Mexico. Unfortunately, what I didn't know about them was far more than I thought I knew,
First, and most important, it is a generational journey that the monarchs take each year. What that means is that the monarchs that we might see in our backyards during the summer, are not the monarchs that left Mexico in the spring, and they are most likely not the monarchs that will travel back to Mexico in the fall. The yearly cycle takes at least three, and as many as five generations of monarchs to complete.
Also, those monarchs that are born in southern Canada and America, never see Mexico. They are non-migratory, and tend to have smaller wings than their migratory ancestors and descendants. They are born of the monarchs that left Mexico, survive between two and five weeks, then pass along their DNA to the next generation, eventually producing the one that does the heavy flying, back to Mexico. Those that represent the 4th and 5th generation can live up to a few months, in addition to being bigger than their progenitors.
Yet, amazingly, they know when to depart and where to go, despite never having been there before. Perhaps, due to having very little knowledge of etymology, I assumed that, like birds, monarchs were led by the senior members of their group, at least for one round trip, thereby imparting the migratory cycle through experience.
But no, those that make the return trip have never been there before. Considering my own tendency to easily lose my car in a large parking lot, or get turned around when approaching a familiar destination from a different angle, it is a remarkable achievement.
Last year, my wonderful wife decided to realize a dream of hers by creating a wildflower garden in our backyard. In our previous home with its postage size backyard, she had, over the years, eliminated most of the grass, replacing it with flower gardens and plants and bushes of many types. By the time we moved in 2020, I was able to mow the lawn with a weed wacker.
But it was very small, as I said, so when we were searching for a new home, we prioritized a larger yard, which we were lucky enough to have found. Consequently, last May, we contracted to have about 900 square feet of lawn removed down to the soil, whereupon she distributed wild flower seeds, like the proverbial Joanna Appleseed.
Now, if you recall, it was very dry in late May and early June last year. And so, three weeks into the experiment, we were looking at dry ground with a few random pieces of grass struggling towards the sky. To be honest, there were a few days when we wondered what madness made us scrape off such a huge swath of land.
But June's dry spell was replaced with rain, and by mid-July we had a host of wildflowers growing, followed by all sorts of bees, bugs, and butterflies. I can't say we saw any monarchs, but the colors and smells and plethora of nature eliminated the doubt we had experienced for those first few weeks.
Or, in monarch time, it took one generation for our garden to prosper.
Needless to say, the wildflower garden is here to stay, and will most likely get expanded, in hopes that a generation of monarchs will find a home, if only for a short time, in our modest back yard.
Selflessness.
Without falling to far down the rabbit hole of anthropomorphism, wouldn't it be nice if humans showed even a tincture of the selflessness that those generations of monarchs display which never leave America. Their only function is to procreate the next generations, eventually leading to those monarchs who travel back to Mexico to spend the winter, only to migrate up north where the cycle begins again.
Of course, in some ways, we do behave in such a way when we become parents. A little bit of sacrifice here, some nods to the future there, and hopes that by providing roots and wings, our children will have the confidence to pursue happiness, wherever it may take them.
We also act as those monarchs who live so the next generations can migrate, when we discuss the problems of the day, and when we fashion solutions to address those issues. While politics has always been partisan, there has also been a generous amount of compromise and bipartisanship at various times, even in our recent past.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that all the stimulus money distributed by both the Trump and Biden Administrations during the pandemic, while adding a certain percentage to the ugly rise in inflation, also provided the foundation for millions of American families to weather the storm of lock downs and unemployment, enabling America to emerge much stronger than most of the world's other western nations.
So yes, while the hand wringing associated with the ever growing national debt is justified, the understanding that it could have been much worse, that those at the bottom of the economic ladder may have fallen completely through, that recession and perhaps worse was avoided by temporarily increasing our debt is a strong counter to such worries.
That doesn't mean we should not act to reduce the debt moving forward, but is also doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize the end results. After all, if we were honest with ourselves, compared to the past when we took actions that substantially increased our debt, World War One and Two, the Cold War, the war on terror which began in 2001, and the massive bailouts of the banks and other financial institutions in 2008, at least the funds causing this rise in debt went to everyday Americans, not the military industrial complex or the bankers and hedge fund managers.
Will we act communally to address this debt, will we demonstrate some selflessness? Will those with the most (have you read about Elon Musk's $58 billion pay package that is being challenged in court) act as those monarch generations who are content with never migrating? Will we begin to understand that fair distribution of our great nation's considerable resources is the only true way to guarantee that the generations to follow will be able to prosper?
A few years ago, I posted the following concerning personal happiness and global anxiety. While the topic is only loosely associated with this post, it does address the idea that it is possible to be happy with one's own life, maybe even one's position in the migratory cycle, while worrying about the bigger picture, about whether our progeny will be able to create a future better than today, or make it to Mexico.
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