The balance of good vs. mosquitoes (evil)

We haven’t had much rain over the last three weeks so I have had to water my garden every other day or so. Last evening was one of those days. Armed with my watering wand and a can of Guinness stout I went to work after dinner.

The mosquitoes are bad right now. We had a very wet Spring so their reproduction has been rampant. They will lay eggs in anything with still water, from watering cans to bird baths. And the life cycle, in 90 degree weather, from egg, to larva, to pupa, to blood sucker is quick. You can swat and spray all you want but in the end the mosquitoes will always win.

I have spent my entire life outdoors, from camping, working, to living for a time out in the open. For whatever reason, I can deal with mosquitoes. I by no means like them but my impression is that they don’t like me as much as they like other people. One of those “other people” is my wife. So as I watered the garden last night a black mist swarmed around my legs. Maybe it was the Guinness eking out of my pores that kept them at bay. My wife decided to do a little planting herself and lasted a short five minutes in the wilds know as our manicured backyard. Later that night hers legs were covered in small welts while I remained relatively unscathed.

More than one person has asked the question why mosquitoes live among us. I am sure some think they are simply a sadistic joke God plays on us to keep us humble. The real answer is balance. Mosquitoes serve a purpose, a complex and important purpose. Fish, birds, bats, frogs, tadpoles, dragonflies, damselflies and spiders, to name a few, all feed on mosquitoes. If we eliminated them would these creatures survive? Who knows. I for one don’t want to find out. So, we may not understand their function, we may not appreciate their existence but they do have a purpose and without them our ecosystem would be out of balance.

As I watered the garden last night with 10,000 of my mosquito friends I thought about the evil that had occurred in Orlando over the weekend and wondered must we have evil in our world to balance the good? Is evil part of our ecosystem? Can good even exist without evil? These are questions to ponder. Certainly evil makes us more appreciative of the good in the world but is it worth the slaughter of 49 innocent people, honestly millions of innocent people each year? Is evil simply part of our human ecosystem? The balance against all that is good in the world?

“Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.” – Friedrich Nietzsche