21 May 2011

No end to their world


I know with great certainty that the world is not going to end today: The squirrels are outside, burying nuts.

There is something very forward-looking about the way they cache these super-seeds. This is their equivalent of the IRA, the 401-K, the SEP. This is their retirement plan (though squirrels would never be so foolish as to hang up their successful careers. Gnawing, nut-burying and baby-squirrel-making has always been far, far too profitable a venture.)

Forget all the grand predictions and warnings you’ve heard about sudden doom. Squirrels believe in the future. They're too busy building tomorrow's natural world and populating it to worry about final sunsets.

So let the earthquakes keep still. Let the ocean suck back its tsunamis and hold them for another day. Let the locusts and plagues fly off somewhere. Anywhere but this planet.

The squirrels are far too busy for Armageddon. There are forests to plant, after all. Nuts to crack. Trees to grow. And baby squirrels to make, to populate the branches.

So please don't bother the squirrels today with any talk of finality: They're caught up in the rapture of the moment.