The work ethic

After several months of doing building work at the weekends I finally got a Sunday off and lay on the sun lounger reading a book. Life can't all be about work. The sun was hot and the neighbours were mercifully out at someone else's barbecue for a change so we had a break from the relentless thumping base that comes from their all weather garden speakers whenever the sun shines. Instead we heard the sweet harmonics of undigitlised birdsong from the woods at the back.

I happened to look down from reading, and through the increased magnification of my reading glasses, noticed an ant making it's way across the patio. Nothing remarkable about that except that it was carrying the carcass of a much larger insect. I know that ants are said to be incredibly strong but it is only when you see one carrying several times its body weight that you fully realise just how strong they are.

Due to this great dead carcass it couldn't see (or sense?) a lot in front of it but it clearly had purpose and direction. When it abruptly hit an obstacle, such as a twig it backed up and moved around it. The insect it carried was stretched across its front like an abnormally wide load but without the flashing lights and traffic jam building up behind. It held the dead insect high (by ant's standards) and moved at an amazing rate. Then it hit a rough patch of what looked like congealed wood pigeon's crap (yes I should clean it up) and it ground to a halt. It pushed, it lifted, it moved sideways and after each one of these attempts it immediately modified its actions until eventually it turned itself around and walked backwards across the rough terrain dragging its load. It was so clever and effective that I almost burst into spontaneous applause.

When it got to the nest the other ants no doubt gratefully took the load, they could even have had a party while he regaled them with stories of his heroic effort across the mountain of bird crap. I wondered what reward he got for this work. I can't imagine that it spent the rest of the afternoon on the sun lounger with its feet up and a cool drink. I suspect that it went straight back out for more food, programmed as it is to work for the common good. And it will also never know that it had an admiring audience and even induced a twinge of guilt in me. A twinge of guilt that is, for me, the quintessential ingredient of idle pleasure.