On butterflies, larvae, and the need for balance

Did you know that a larva has to self-destroy to turn into a butterfly? That is what is happening inside that chrysalis. It’s not just a li’l sprouting of wings: it’s a full-on transformation, a wholesale breaking down of what was to make space for what is to come.

I think about that a lot.

Humans are hardwired both for self-preservation and for growth. That makes us different from larvae: we are capable of staying in an inchoate state forever, never learning to fly. Plus, we get to decide which it is — growth or stagnation — for every aspect of our lives, sometimes on a daily basis. Both choices carry pain. Both can have serious consequences. At a minimum, both will have results we cannot possibly imagine, because everyone else around us is also making these mostly unconscious calculations all the time, in small and big ways.

Barely buried in the way we usually talk about butterflies is a value-judgement, as if radical transformation always is a good thing. No one desires larvae to stay larvae. Larvae are limited and borderline gross. Butterflies are colorful, capable and above all beautiful.

But while change is a constant no matter what we do, the choices we make about what to transform and what to preserve truly matter. There is a necessary balance to be created in the tug-of-war of conservatism (with a small c) and the urge to move on. A need to build on what was, as well as to depart from it. Creative leaps into the unknown are spectacular and exhilarating, but not always warranted or even “good” (however defined). Then again, sometimes we need to move, even if just to gain a different vantage point.

There is no concrete subtext to these meandering musings about change, though they tend to come up around this time: just 10 days before the end of the year. I am learning to trust my intuition, and right now it is telling me that 2024 will be a year of jumping off some decently sized boulders. The rest is hazy. I am tentatively OK with that.