Ants Under a Magnifying Glass

“Do bugs have school?” my 5-year-old daughter asked me.

“No, they don’t have school, baby,” I responded in a robotic and classically trained human way.

Then I thought about it because I don’t just want to pass on my conditioned understanding or misunderstanding of the world. And, like anything else, the more you consider all possibilities, the less clear any sort of answer becomes. What if they fucking do? I don’t really know. In our perception, bugs don’t have school, but maybe our perception isn’t reality to a bug. We think we know, but the more we learn, the more we come to understand how little we know. We realize our ignorance more with each passing moment. We only over-think things like this until we realize how little thought we’ve actually given to them. I don’t want to confuse her, but my guess is that no matter how I responded, she wouldn’t be any more confused than the rest of us.

Next time, maybe I’ll say, “You know what, sweetie, people don’t think bugs have school, but people are pretty dumb, so who knows.”

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