My Awesome Job

...Well, other than mom, of course.  That job is certainly awesome!

I am working in a research facility.  I get to dissect flies all day.  Yes, flies.  Not house flies.  That would be hard enough... I am talking about those pesky little fruit flies.  Yes I dissect them for their brains.  It's like I am a zombie for flies but I'm a human.  That doesn't make any sense. 

It's a good job in the sense that I am working with great people, doing interesting things, and getting paid.  It's kind of fun.  There is a downside...

I am literally putting out hundreds of lives a day.  Some consciously, sometimes it is not so conscious.  I am pondering whether these flies had a good life or had any meaning to their lives.  Was their fly-ness respected?  They were born in vials with many other flies, all eating the same food and pooping everywhere.  On the upside, they get all the food they can eat and pretty much all the sex they can have.  Does this matter?  Do flies like to eat and have sex?  I am still wrestling with this question.

The bigger question is about whether I believe in the reason for their raising and their deaths.  I eat meat.  I do believe we were placed with a certain dominion over animals.  I also believe each being has a purpose and meaning to express their own being-ness.  I don't know if I believe in killing animals for research purposes.  I am aware of the irony as I write this in the library of a facility whose purpose is to use animals for research.  I wonder how different this fly keeping is from factory farming, something I definitely do not agree with.

One thing the flies have taught me is the importance of being conscious about how something dies and knowing when it does.  This lesson will help me if I ever decide to butcher a chicken for dinner, which is something I am considering.  The cycle of life is real.  Death must come so new life can follow.  The phoenix rises from the ashes. ASHES... It has to burn up first, which is saddening. 

My flies have taught me so much, but now it is time for the new life to come.  I am not sure what is next, but it is coming for me very soon.