Curious Creatures

A few days ago, I had a meeting to attend. I was given the wrong time, and so arrived quite early (when in fact, I thought I was 15 minutes late!). I wasn't sure if I was only 15 minutes early or if it in fact started at the top of the next hour, so I decided against going home to wait and then being wrong (and late) again. I went into the room we were to be meeting in and found a few chairs set up along the back wall. Not being in charge, I didn't know how the chairs were going to be set up for the meeting, so I just sat in one of the chairs already there.

As I sat there looking out at the empty room I noticed a dark spot on the carpet. Occasionally there are refreshments served at meetings and I figured that this spot was the remnants of something spilled. By the time I had determined that the meeting was in fact at the start of the next hour, I happened to look up just as this dark spot (which up until this point was quite stationary) began to run in a wide circle. It was, in fact a spider. I wasn't sure what made it suddenly run around, but after it made a few turns, it stopped, again looking like a small stain on the carpet. After about 5 more minutes, the spider ran around in a wide circle and stopped. This happened repeatedly. It would rest and then run. Not going anywhere in particular and not making any progress in any one direction.
I considered using my notebook to let it crawl on and putting it outside, or even smashing it. But I didn't. I just couldn't interrupt it's curious regimen. Run in a circle, stop and blend in. Repeat. So I just watched it.

Ten minutes to the next hour and the women hosting the meeting arrived, bringing in their supplies. I noted that the spider sat quietly in the middle of the floor as soon as the movement of people was detected. I got up and helped set up the chairs and saw that the spider remained motionless. We set up the chairs in a large circle, as the meeting was to be a discussion/sharing type, leaving the spider undisturbed. When they were set up, I sat in a chair a few feet from the spider, and wondered if it would go back to its curious movements once the meeting began. However, one of the women in charge walked across the circle to place the agenda on each of the chairs, right in the path of the spider. Noting the impending danger, the spider immediatly jumped up and made a straight line for the side of the room, disappearing behind the remaining chairs stacked along the wall.

Don't we all act this way some times? We run around in a seemingly mindless manner, but in fact doing what suits us for the moment. Then when there is a sense of urgency, we know just what to do to make things work out. Hopefully we have the sense to get out of the way when danger approaches and know when it is okay to be carefree, even if it appears as though we are only running about in circles. I had no real point to this story, but I thought it was just something interesting that I was the only witness to. Funny how a little spider can make you feel philosophical.