THE TERMITE MOUND

THE TERMITE MOUND

By Frances Harris



Humans are strange creatures. Collectively we can send a rocket to the moon, produce plastic that has a memory of its own, we can delve into the depths of the sea in a tiny sea craft; send driverless drones to report back to a point thousands of kilometres away. Not to mention that we can obliterate our own kind at the press of a button. But what we can’t seem to do is keep our own kind fed, safe, comfortable and living without fear. We soil our homes with pollutions, destroy our natural food sources through greed, and there is continual unrest in our populations. For most of our lives we waste massive energy doing things that are of no substantial benefit to anyone. Then when our plans mess up, we spend more energy trying to fix them.

Termites, on the other hand seem to have life sewn up. Everything they do has a constructive purpose, there are very little wasted resources or energy and everything is executed efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. So why can’t we do that? When did we lose our focus? Or did we ever have it in the first place?

Termites don’t need spray bottles, rakes, wheelbarrows, hoses, cups saucers, plates, chairs, tables, heaters, coolers, fans, conditioners and the like. They don’t need to spend the bulk of their lives amassing and managing currency to pay for these items or digging holes in the ground looking for oil. They don’t seem to have the obsessive need to be better than each other or take more resources than they can use. No superannuation, taxes, management committees, funds management and the list goes out of sight.

The one thing termites have over humans is that they keep their lives in order without layers and layers of supervision or consultatnts. They don’t need a police force or management structure or political structure because there is rarely descent. They don’t need a budget to balance because life for a termite is uncomplicated and well planned. They have all that they need to look after their own.

Their termite mounds are often located way out in the desert, still they manage to maintain an orderly life. There is a reliable plan known by all and executed with precision. There is enough of everything for everyone. They go about providing nourishment for all of the members because they toil all day collecting and storing it. They ensure the colony produces a new well cared for new generation to preserve the species. The mission is to ensure there is a well fed, comfortable, insulated, dry, safe place to for all to live in. War is almost unheard of.

It’s at this point I start to feel uncomfortable about being a human because I realise we waste enormous amounts of energy procrastinating, supervising, making fragmented decisions and we spend very little time doing our jobs to completion. Everything we do is strung together or hitched up till another time. Not a lot of our effort works effectively to mesh with the efforts of others of our own kind. It’s been possibly eighty years since the water pipes in our street were installed, and now that the street floods regularly, the authorities have decided to work on them. That just about sums it up.

Termites can get the job done without sub committees, super committees or surveys. They don’t need three tiered management and they don’t seem to need elections, or technology to communicate with each other. Maybe because their lives are so orderly there is very little to report. It doesn’t matter what time of the day, each little termite knows what to do and when its working day starts and when it ends. Nobody starves and nobody is left homeless. The young have everything they need with armies of workers to take care for them for the full twenty four hours.  No child care fees, imagine that!

Maybe they could fight back if they were threatened, or have some wonderfully devious plan to hide until the threat is gone. When I get to thinking about these principles, isn’t the termite life close to our idea of utopia than we can imagine? So which ones of us are the smart ones? We design and construct multi story buildings nobody lives in that are empty but still consuming energy in varying degrees most of the time. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? It does to me.  

Maybe it’s time to go back to the drawing board and take in some good lessons from those little termites that seem to have the game stitched up. If we were to lead uncomplicated lives like the termites, would there be more time to reflect on the real things that matter before we eventually destroy everything we take for granted? I think if we humans don’t take a good look around us, the termites might eventually be the only ones left to carry on.