Billions of people have lived and died who no one remembers, but a specific, individual spider I let crawl on my arm 30 years ago exists in living human memory.
Billions of people have lived and died who no one remembers, but a specific, individual spider I let crawl on my arm 30 years ago exists in living human memory.
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Until you die. Then it’s back to the first part of the sentence.
I remember that day with that weird level of clarity only a handful of childhood memories get. I was at my grandparents’ house and found a little daddy long legs behind the recliner. It was the first time I convinced myself they weren’t anything to be afraid of, so I let him climb on my hand and walk around. I must have been 6 or 7. I randomly remembered this spider this morning. I currently live in that same house that was once my grandparents’ when they were alive. I’m looking right across the room where it happened as I type this. When I thought about that memory it occurred to me how strange it was to think about an insignificant little bug that lived and died 30 or so years ago as an individual, that I (or anyone) can specifically remember, rather than as a sort of abstract thing. Something that isn’t true for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived.
Maybe by posting this I’m immortalizing that little spider. That memory would otherwise die with me.
Over 30 years ago while I was living in Houston, a jumping spider took up residence with me in my apartment. He would hang out by my recliner near a window where he caught bugs that wandered in. After several weeks, he worked up the courage to hop on me and wander around. Eventually, I would scoot him onto my hand and place him back on his windowsill. This went on for a couple of months, to the point I named him Deion (after Deion Sanders) because he was so fast.
When I moved out of that apartment, my wife discovered Deion hiding out in one of our moving boxes. Since we were moving several states away & I figured he would never survive the trip, I caught him, told him goodbye, and put him in the bushes next to the door of “his” apartment.
Still remember the little guy after all these years.
To a spider you might not even register as another living thing with how much bigger you are. If there were a version of that to us it would remember you freaking it the fuck out for Eons
The spiders in Coyote Peterson’s YouTube videos will live on for the remainder of human history
The universe’s hard drive is bizarre