All is One, One is All

Anonymous
“All is One, One is All”, a quote from the manga “Fullmetal Alchemist” by Hiromi Arakawa that has made me think about life in a more rational way than before. The concept of life in such a way is something that did not come to my mind before reading the manga. Since I am always using the phone to watch television shows and reading mangas I rarely get out of the house. However, one time my family took me to the countryside to visit my uncle during a vacation. There the nature envelopes each house like how bees swarm when someone tries to harm their hive. Being a huge fan of mother nature, I like observing little creatures and plants doing their daily activities. One day, as I was observing a little fly hovering over some tiny flowers near a spider web, I noticed it got stuck. What happened afterwards, reminded of the quote I mentioned above, and I realized how the survival of one individual is completely dependent on another.

Seeing how the tiny fly get glued to that newly spun spider web, I was heartbroken. Not only because the poor fly lost its freedom to move or maybe even to live, but also because the spider’s beautifully spun silky web was ruined. The immobilized fly struggled to escape from the web that it was glued to. As the fly kept on struggling the spider detected it due the bouncing movement of the entire web. The spider moved closer and closer towards the area the little fly, at that moment, resided. The closer the spider was to the fly, the more the fly struggled to escape from its predator. A few seconds later, the spider held the fly with its skinny legs like a pair of chopsticks holding a piece of meat. Then the spider started to devour the fly as if it were having a meal at a five star restaurant. After its meal, the spider prepared to spin a new web in order to acquire new food and to find a mate to reproduce. 

A few days later after the spider has found the “love of its life,” it became pregnant with lovely little spider babies. I believe the nutrients of that tiny little fly will be passed onto the spiderlings from its parent who ate the fly. That made me wonder how the little fly did not actually die, but its remains are still alive inside the spider. Though by then, the remains of the fly will be scattered through the spider’s body, or maybe its nutrients are used to spin a new web. Has the spider and the fly become one? I wondered. The pregnant spider follows its normal routine but never gets bored. Some days later, the spider babies were born! They might look terrifying when all of them are together, but individually, under a microscope, they probably look quite cute and they will grow up to be like their mother, whom they should all be grateful for giving them the gift of life. 

I have read that some species of spiders, instead of being thankful to their mothers, the spiderlings do not even get to see their mothers. I asked myself, “How will they know how hard their mother worked for their birth?” Even worse is that with another species of spiders, the spiders consume their mother's body right after their birth something that is quite horrifying to think about. Though in a way, their mothers’ remains will be inside the spiderlings body. So, they will always be “a mommy’s child” since they will never be apart from their mothers. It is the same for the microorganisms that do the work of decomposing. We may not be able to see them with the naked eye, but they can surely eat a part of us after we die or even when we are alive. All beings are actually one with the small microorganisms as mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, was an organism similar to bacteria in extremely “ancient” times. The whole cycle repeats for every other being on this planet. 

This was an experience that taught me how to think about life in such a way. The way in which everything in life is connected to something else and how we are so dependent on other things for living. “All is One, One is All”, where “All” indicates the world and “One” indicates the individual. For us, in order to survive, we have to sacrifice the life of something else, and that is how we can move forward with life. This is the cycle of life and the cycle of the world.