Some thoughts on the lowly cicada

Today, I turn my thoughts to the lifecycle of the cicada. Several times over the past few weeks I've reflected upon them, and last night I had another thought.

First, of course, the facts. Depending on the species, cicadas live underground as nymphs for anywhere from 2-17 years (the most well-known are the 13-year and 17-year cicadas) before emerging to the surface to hatch into their winged forms, and sing their mighty resonant song for 4-6 weeks before their little lives come to an end. You can research this stuff on the web - the specifics aren't necessarily relevant to my point.

The cicadas in Japan are an overwhelming presence in the heat of the summer. Their throbbing symphony of buzzing envelops you like a silvery rain as you walk outdoors, and taunts you through your window as you sit in your sweltering room, awaiting the evening retreat of the oppressive sun. In the mornings, they were even substantially louder than my alarm clock! Now that the summer is approaching an end, though, their numbers are dwindling, and their song is but a faint echo of what it once was, lacking the overwhelming punch that was its hallmark, like a muzak interpretation of Guns 'n Roses.

The obvious analogy that first hits anyone, I think, is the brevity and intensity of the cicada's life. Its song lasts but a few weeks, a reminder of the transience of life and the ephemeral nature of all we hold dear. Much like the sakura blossoms in spring, they are a reminder of impermanence. We often lull ourselves into a false sense of security, fooling ourselves into thinking that the things we have established in our lives - our situations, our relationships, our belongings - are permanent, but nothing lasts forever (even cold November rain).

Ok, so that's one way of looking at it.

The other day, I saw a poor little cicada frantically flapping about, crashing into walls and trees, panicking as it realized that it had reached the beginning of the end. Cicadas are rather loud as they wrestle with their impending doom, and this one was clattering about with great fervor. I found myself cheering it on, "fight, little one! squeeze out every sweet moment of precious life that you can before the darkness overtakes you!" Futile, of course - its fate had been decided since the beginning - but still, it put on the most spectacular show, navigating the concrete barriers of my apartment complex with a wild passion, crashing violently into one wall only to roll over and launch itself into the next. Again, it's the same kind of theme - impermanence and transience, but watching this had a much more profound effect on me than mere philosophical musings among the song of the cicadas beneath a tree in a park.

"Sometimes you've gotta take life by the lips and just YANK!"

But last night I was walking home after having said my farewells to yet another departing friend, this one a connoisseur of "enhanced experiences", let us say. Perhaps this was why I began thinking again about our small friends, but from a different perspective. Consider - they spend 17 years underground and 4 weeks aboveground, and all we think about is the relative brevity of their adult life. What about those 17 years? Do they not go about their daily lives as a grub, squidging about in the dirt and roots, garnering nourishment and ... well, garnering more nourishment? My point is, after 17 years of that, a cicada has to be pretty used to its lifestyle. After 17 years it knows its little underground world pretty thoroughly inside and out. It has its daily routine, knows the good places to go suck on tree roots, and is master of its domain. We don't give this part of its life enough credit.

Then, just as it's starting to think, "well... looks like I only have 4-6 weeks left to grub about in the dirt", it suddenly finds itself crawling up out of the ground and bursting forth into a world of brilliant colors, surround sound, incomprehensible depths and distances, new smells, flavors, movements... sensory overload! Not only this, but suddenly its exoskeleton bursts open, and it finds itself with ... wings? Absolute three-dimensional freedom! Held back by none of the restraints that were taken for granted in its old world, it is now free to explore, to fly, and to drink in this technicolor extravaganza of a world it could never have even dreamed of!

Scale this now to a human lifespan, and consider what it would be like if you could live the last 6 months of your life experiencing the analogue of this, a hyperdimensional experience of sensory input you now cannot even imagine, suddenly and unexpectedly unbound by the physical restraints of this world and free to fly through space and time! Oh, and incidentally you also have a mission in this synaesthetic swirl of color-sound-taste-music to mate once before you die, an activity which, scaled up by the same factor, would last for five full hours, the intense, passionate climax to this unexpected new life you have miraculously discovered!