Why do we not live consistently by our own set of values?
I have been growing vegetables in my garden for the last few weeks and we seem to be inundated with butterflies laying their eggs on my lettuces! I love to sit and watch the bees and the butterflies in my garden. I can literally sit there for hours watching them go about their business!
I recently had an experience with a bumblebee where I managed to bring her back from being almost dead and it affected me so much that I went out and bought £50 worth of bee friendly flowers for my garden!
Don't forget to click the images for the full screen effect...
These little beauties are not your typical English garden variety. I happened to visit a butterfly park and these guys posed perfectly for me...
It got me thinking about the question 'Why?'
Why do I view the butterflies that land on my vegetables as pests; yet when I visit the butterfly park, I stare in awe at these magnificent creatures in all their glory!
I wouldn't dream of hurting any of the beautiful visitors to my vegetable patch, but I do tend to clear their eggs off the leaves when I see them.
But now I am feeling guilty for doing so.
I was taking pictures of the butterflies and saw these awesome cocoon's and realised that I had been destroying the little babies that were being hatched on my plants back home.
As I do often, this got me thinking about the wider world and 'Why' we do the things that we do depending on the situation we are in.
For example social media! I am not a huge user of social media, but I have seen the venom that has been spat across the interweb by complete strangers and supposed friends, when they are safely behind their keyboards.
Yet face to face, they wouldn't dream of acting the same way in public! Why do people react one way in one situation, then the polar opposite in another?
Do we react differently depending on who is watching? If so, 'Why?' Should we not have a set of values and stick to them no matter where we are and who is watching?
I am not a fan of Facebook, I tend to use it to stay in touch with family and friends, but I don't tend to socialise on there with people I don't know. Here on Steemit, I have never met most of the people I engage with here, but it does not feel as aggressive or as hostile. Yes, there are the various voting wars that go on, but I keep out of them as i do not wish to partake in them and I want to feel as though this is a safe place to be.
I have met so many like minded individuals here on Steemit and I think we are all pretty much in a similar mindset... live and let live! Encourage, don't destroy!
Why is Facebook so different to Steemit? Is it because we are not in our own environment here and we are liable to punishment? (downvotes) Do we behave more respectably towards one another when there is the fear of rebuke?
On the other hand, Facebook is known for censorship whereas Steemit is the epitome of freedom of speech! (As long as we are open to people disagreeing with us and giving a downvote)
I like to think of myself as a peaceful person and I hate confrontation, but recently I have realised that even our actions towards nature can change our energies if we are not living by the values we set for ourselves.
I don't want to be a hypocrite. I want to be able to look back at my life and know that I left my environment in a better way than I found it and that I gave as much love and respect to all living things as I possibly could.
I have decided that tomorrow I will go out and buy some netting to cover my lettuces so that I don't have to damage any more butterfly eggs. You may think this is a silly reaction and that I should just continue to remove the eggs from the plants, but the more I think about these things, the more they don't sit right with me.
As much as I want to be able to eat the things I plant, can I blame nature for also wanting to use these plants as food? If I use just a simple net or mesh to protect the vegetables, I am not harming the butterflies or interfering with their own natural cycles.
I may even plant a few extra just as a gift to the butterflies ;)
Can we have a set of values for one situation and different set of values for another? Should we be more protective of our home environment to the point of being disruptive to another? I don't think we should!
I would much prefer to work around things and not put myself in the situation where I have to act in a way that does not sit right with my core values. so to change my reactions, I first have to change the environment around me.
All these epiphanies have me feeling like a butterfly emerging from it's cocoon! Lets hope nobody squashes me before I have chance to emerge too...
Thank you so much for reading!
All the images are my own, taken with my Nikon D5300 using my 90mm Macro lens.
