I remember when I was young living in the country. We would see caterpillars all the time. They were green most times and creepy. No one that I can remember really liked them much. They were slow and unattractive hairy creatures. They were easily caught and trapped. We never took the time to appreciate the caterpillar for what it was - a baby butterfly.
I see the caterpillar in many of us. We appear to be much, much less than what we actually are. We accept that we are much less for good reason - we don't see any evidence that we are anything greater than what we see. We are afflicted with feelings of helplessness psychologically. These feelings cause us to faint and stop us from going forward with a plan of progress. And truth be told many of us feel that, like the caterpillar, we have no way of moving any other way than on the bottom crawling from one place to the next.
Today, I want to talk to you about the caterpillar and our similarities to it. There are many of us who, like the caterpillar, crawl around life at the very bottom. There are a few points that I want to look at on this matter although if one were to analyze, they might find many more.
First of all the caterpillar is unattractive. There is nothing very attractive at all about the average caterpillar. When I was young we used to delight in getting rid of slimy caterpillars. There are some of us that are UNWANTED: people want to get rid of us. There is nothing beautiful about some of us and, like the caterpillar, instead of receiving invitations to stay, we are given the boot and told in many different ways to “hit the road!”. The reason is simple: you are not wanted.
You're probably right. Had you been a celebrity of some sort, a sex pistol, a person of talent or political figure, you might have been able to attend the party for BIG SHOTS. But since you have no title: you can't get in. No one knows you. And even with your charming personality and flashy clothes no one will admit you into their personal circle of friends. They keep you out. You are not on their level. They haven't accepted you and you are not wanted in their clique. You are unwanted - just like a caterpillar.
Secondly, the caterpillar's mobility is challenged. It's slow and bulky and cannot flee danger. In most cases, it can only ball up in the case of an attack. There are so many of us who seem to be going nowhere fast. We struggle to move out of the hood. We struggle to save money or make it. We struggle to stop everything from drinking to drugging to overeating. Our mobility is challenged. It is difficult for us to move from one place to another. Then on another level, our mobility is challenged in that you don't even have the transportation to get from one place another. The hack or the jitney is your ride - know what I mean?
Caterpillars. There is another thing about the caterpillar that is startlingly familiar. It is the fact that caterpillars really cannot fly. There is no way they can rise above the problems that they face. Because they have no wings, they have no other alternative than to endure any pain dispensed by others. There are many of us that are the same way: we cannot or will not rise above the situations that challenge us. We just endure problems or we just survive them. Bob Marley once sang a song that said “we are survivors”. Indeed we are! For the most part, all some of us do when we face troubles is kick into survivor mode. When we “kick into” survival mode we do things just merely to stay alive. It is kind of like a “Ground Zero” type of consciousness. In this psychological state, fear is our main motivation. We don't play to win; we play to stay alive. We don't ever try to get the A's, we try to just get the lowest passing grade possible. D minus is just fine for a survivor.
Remember the caterpillar. Little guy, unloved, unable to move quickly, unable to fly. His destiny is radically different than what he appears to be. We all know the story of caterpillars - how they go into a cocoon and then emerge to fly victorious with sparrows and blue jays. Truth is though that most caterpillars never make it to butterfly stage. What could be more tragic than seeing a dead caterpillar? Never getting a chance to fly, never getting a chance to get off the ground, never getting a chance to kiss the skies! Unfortunately, this is the situation with many of us.
