The Swarm
Watching the National Geographic channel the other day, I came across a series with Will Smith called Welcome to Earth. One of the episodes was about how many animals survive by functioning as a unit. There is the wildebeest migration, birds creating amazing configurations as they fly in unison, a species of bees (40,000 of them) who huddle together and shift their position like dominoes to protect their hive. Some features of this phenomenon stick with me in particular. No matter how many there are, they stay close together. They also don’t stay too close that they are touching, almost like they intuitively claim and respect personal space. Most amazing is how these animals function as if they have one mind. As individuals they would never survive, but together they thrive.
This Welcome to Earth episode is called Mind of the Swarm. Staying close together seems to keep the group connected. Allowing for a little space maintains their individual integrity just enough so they can function as an important contributing member of the swarm. Of course, it is instinct and not thought that allows creatures to behave this way. But maybe we as humans also have instincts that we have hidden buried under our thinking and conscious minds. Maybe if we can somehow access these instincts, or intuitions, we can discover (or recover) our true natures and in that discovery find ourselves and each other in new and healthier ways.
As American humans, we cherish our individuality as if it were our only identity, as if needing others is an admission of failure or weakness. At the same time we cling to our “tribe” to help shape our ideas and ideologies. We are committed to both but for all the wrong reasons. The individual, in many animal species, is essential for the group to function. In turn, the tribe keeps the individual animal alive. It is the dance of survival. We, however, seem to be in a dance of cultural and existential demise. What can we learn from these animals that might save us?
If we become a swarm what might that look like? What might that feel like? What might we gain? Maybe we would become more purposeful because our reason for existing would be clear. Maybe we would strive to be our best selves in order to do what is best for each other. Maybe we would feel like we belong. Maybe we would create tribes for the purpose of survival, thriving alongside other tribes doing the same. But we don’t create swarms. We create movements and systems that separate, demonize and protect ourselves from one another. Animals create swarms for protection as well but swarms do not attack other swarms. They co-exist and even share habitat. Yes, they may eat each other to survive by attacking individuals in the swarm, but by doing so they also maintain an ecological balance. Where is our ecological balance? I do not think we have one since we continue to take, destroy, consume and rage war against everyone and everything that is not us. When you watch that swarm of birds, there is a rightness and beauty about their behavior. They do not mindlessly follow one leader in the hope of a better life just for themselves. In a swarm there is no one leader, there is maybe the one that is first and then another one takes that place and then another and another. The same for the one who is last. They do what is necessary to keep the swarm functioning. They adapt, sense, connect and sometimes sacrifice themselves for the good of the whole.
As we continue to yearn to belong, to be seen as special and important, to fear others who have the same yearnings, maybe we are missing something that could fix this. Maybe we need to look at the animals we live with on the beautiful and tragic planet to show us a new way. Maybe being a swarm is the beginning of an answer.
