“Or maybe… because, in my ever so limited measure of greatness, in my Cartesian, human, paradox, I may have glimpsed, all of a sudden, something immeasurable.”

ODE TO THE SEA-SLUGS

Why?
For nothing.
Or maybe, for all the relevance of the much one doesn’t think of as relevant.
Or of the much one doesn’t think of when one thinks.

Why?
Because, according to Descartes, we think, therefore, we are.
Therefore, maybe we discard the existence of everything we don’t think of.

Why?
For everything.
Or maybe for the no relevance whatsoever of all the small, minuscule, infinitesimal nothings that turn around in our thoughts, and turn into all which is relevant.
And that throw us into this tremendous paradox, which is the one of the deconstruction of the Universe to our measure, and the one of the immeasurable construction of our own universe within the Universe.

Why?
Because our restless kid cracks the plastic bottle and spills the soda all over our new swim-suit, and the blast, the colossal damage, muffle, obliterate, to deafness, to blindness, the blast and the damage of one more colossal glacier that cracks and casts one more colossal piece of the Arctic into the sea.

Why?
Because, meanwhile, the sea is so immeasurably great that it blinds us to the immeasurable greatness of the damage caused by just this one – one more – small plastic bottle that we cast into it.
And because the soda, sticky, blending with our sweat, sticky, makes us think of nothing but the sea, so close.
At the mere distance of some more minutes in the line of cars and emissions of carbon monoxide into the hot atmosphere of that immeasurably hot day, so immeasurably distant, in our thoughts, from the Arctic that melts… as if it didn’t exist.

Why?
Because…
Because…
Because there are, in the immeasurable sea that we deconstruct, like the Universe, to our measure, things as small, and therefore, as distant from the measure of greatness to which we construct ourselves within the Universe, as the sea-slugs.
Of which we don’t think and, therefore, it’s as if they didn’t exist, because nothing exists but the small things that our thoughts turn into things as immeasurably great as the immeasurably great things that only exist in the small measure within which we think of them.

Why?
For nothing.

Or maybe, for all the relevance that the sea-slugs took, in my universe, because, who knows why, I thought of them.
Or maybe because they exist in the immeasurable Universe, beyond the measure of my universe.
Or maybe… because, in my ever so limited measure of greatness, in my Cartesian, human, paradox, I may have glimpsed, all of a sudden, something immeasurable.

What?
The global, universal, immeasurable relevance of everything in the apparent nothing, and of the indiscernible nothing in everything.
Like the relevance of that small “nothing” of a plastic bottle in the immeasurable sea.
Or of some minutes, “like nothing”, of carbon monoxide emissions in the immeasurably hot atmosphere.
Or of the immeasurably hot atmosphere in the distant Arctic that melts and cracks and casts itself, in pieces, into the sea.
Into the sea of an immeasurable Universe where the sea-slugs, as small as small “nothings”, are most certainly as immeasurably relevant, as, say, the Arctic.
The Arctic that, beyond the “measure like a nothing” of my universe, is as immeasurably relevant within everything, and therefore, within the Universe… as, say, me.

-- © 2007 by Alexandra* ~ OneLight*®
(Sea-slug photo courtesy of Peer productions – © by Phil Woodhead)

Notice: “ODE TO THE SEA-SLUGS” was originally written in Portuguese and was submitted as my contribution to one of the Prose Challenges organized each month by Denilson Neves, a Brazilian fellow author, for all members of the literary groups “Amante das Leituras” and “Oficina Literária”. For the current challenge, the theme proposed was “Animals” – wild animals, pets, threatened species, abused animals, animals of cult, friendly and unfriendly animals, companion animals, hunters, preys… well, all animals. Why, among all possible animals, I chose the sea-slugs… I honestly don’t know. Perhaps they chose me! In any case, I wish to dedicate this English version to a friend and fellow author who constantly offers his voice, both in the spoken and in the written form, in defense of all the animals and who, most of all, offers his actions and his heart in defense of all the things, from the small ones to the immeasurable, that are relevant within the whole – this Universe we all are a relevant part of. With immeasurable gratitude and admiration, I dedicate this text to Ed Kostro; Why? Because he understands.