If you ever get the chance to go to an art museum that has a painting by the French artist, Georges Seurat, you'll stand back and see magnificent scenes of brilliant color, vivid detail and enchanting figures of interest.
You'll say, "That is a fine scene with people enjoying themselves in the park on Sunday---oh, look! A pet monkey!"
But, don't just stand there. Get closer. Go on.....walk right up to the painting and get a much closer look.
Put your nose a few inches away from the canvas. What do you see now? The scenes and the people and the monkey have all vanished, haven't they?
Yes, there are only little dots of pure color. Mere dots. What happened to the people? Where is the monkey? Why are there only itty bitty colored dots hugging each other?
Is this a painting or a canvas filled with hundreds of thousands of dots?
Like most things, it depends on how you want to view it and what "meaning" you wish to attach and what context you're standing in.
The life of man and monkey, ape and snail, fruitfly and badger is no different from a painting by Georges Seurat. We are vivid and colorful and create a interesting scene. But, we are all made of dots.
You can call them atoms or quarks or quirks--it matters not. We are all made of the same elements. And the TRUTH of life and death is in how those dots are put together; side by side.
Our planet, Earth, is a large playchest with building blocks. The forces of nature, sunlight, gravity, chemistry, physics shuffle these blocks around. The dots, side by side, are like arrangements of blocks. For a little while they are a stegosaurus and for another while they are disassembled. Then parts of those blocks become a Sequoia tree, a cigarette, a skunk's kidney stone and even a booger in the nose of an Alaskan fisherman.
Arrangements of colored dots. Assemblies of blocks. Atomic alignments. Cells, molecules.....it is all the same thing.
Life and death: what are they?
Arrangements. Happenings. Casual alignments. Temporary fluxes. Sometimes they flux me and sometimes they flux you.
So, you see--it matters not whether man or beast. We are tinker toys all. Enjoy your moment on life's canvas. But, don't be selfish with your colored dots. We all make way for the next painting, the next pile of blocks the next organism.
I tell my children, as we crouch before a field of wild flowers dazzling the swishing grasses under an umbrella of brilliant blue sky: "These are our destiny. We are earth and flower and cloud and wind. When we pass we dissolve like sugar in cups of cherry Kool-aid. We are swallowed by the beauty of the soil. We are delicious! And we are free to become......and become we shall. Anything, everything and all."