The wandering butterfly

The king butterfly kaleidoscope flies on a long migratory flight back to the nesting grounds in the warmer climates for the annual winter roost covering thousands of miles. It will take three generations of the group of butterflies (the kaleidoscope) to reach the winter roost and to nest the next generation. This means that the fourth generation will make the equal multigenerational journey back to the original place where they live and are honoured for their role as pollinators by farmers. The wandering monarch butterfly is just one of the symbols (if one is to consider the essence and symbology) of progress. Progress is an issue hard-discussed in such fields as philosophy and science. These fields all form part of literature as we know it but never actually question in depth. We never seek to understand the simple terms associated with the study of the philosophies and the sciences associated with the acquisition of knowledge and understanding. We tend to think that each of these two is an inverse of the other when they are each an independent entity in essence. One can exist without the other despite their being complementary in terms of definition. In short, one can know without understanding, or they can understand without knowing. Human migration is the core of modern civilisation, for from the cave dwellings groups of human communities began to venture out into the rest of the surrounding world. Relatively small and of less strength than the other creatures, the hairless human had to develop intelligence and wisdom to deal with the largely hostile world full of potential predators. With the development of the tool and the discovery of fire as an element to use to cook and to keep warm, the human had the upper hand in comparison with the other creatures that depended on the instinctive sense to deal with the elements nature threw at them. Man found fire and out of fire fashioned spikes that turned into spears with the discovery of iron and other metals. It is a tale that took a long time to develop, and in its ever-changing shades begot what we now term as human civilisation. Before Mesopotamia and Egypt, before Mapungubwe and Timbuktu, before Bokoni and Great Zimbabwe, man was already on an undocumented path to progress. The evenings full of storytelling episodes and dances around fires often emulated the world around; in essence giving rise to the practice that was later transferred to mediums such as cave walls and books that we now term as literature. Literature has now fanned out into the multimedia spaces covering such stages as theatre and film, with theatre still considered the basis for the latter because it is the more reminiscent of the old around-the-fire literary practices (dances and folk-tales). When Rudyard Kipling penned The Jungle Book, one can safely guess that the man who penned the poem If wanted to explore the primal nature of the human being in the light of his existence in a world he initially does not understand. A small boy raised in the jungles of India by simians, Mowgli, befriends Baloo the bear, is constantly hounded by Bagheera the tiger and the serpent Kaa but grows old enough to  defend himself with a knife (termed the claw by his nemeses) and begins to understand the value of fire as an element to warm his hairless skin. Mowgli the human cub is not only the protagonist in the tale, but he also stands as the symbol of human progress. We have had to struggle against the forces of nature to get to where we are, before we reach the cave full of treasures guarded by a toothless cobra where all that we have always yearned for awaits us. In the era where there are plagues, human progress seems to come to a halt, but in all essences there is nothing like stopping the train of human progress. This is because we always find ways to tell tales about it, still find some sense of wit to carry us through the sad long days. It is the literature of the era that defines exactly what happened in the course of the long dark night, as Sassoon’s and Owen’s poetry defined World War One, as Langston Hughes’ poetry defined the struggle of the black folks for emancipation in America. It is not only Mowgli, the boy in the jungles of India raised by simians that defines human progress and civilisation. Ralph Ellison’s protagonist in The Invisible Man experiences a similar struggle against what he thinks he knows but does not understand. The jungles he wanders through have street signs and light poles for trees, the various dingy underground clubs and bordellos he visits are the caves in which dangerous human creatures of the night reside. Unlike Mowgli who contends with the forces of nature, the protagonist in The Invisible Man has to contend with fellow human beings that do not see him as human (due to the colour of his skin? Maybe…). He also has to understand who he really is like Mowgli in Kipling’s The Jungle Book who grows up in a world where the closest relatives are a family of apes (simians). It is through difference with other creatures and the surrounding world that the protagonists in literary tales begin to understand themselves and the world. Mowgli begins to understand his strength through the constant escapes from Bagheera the tiger and Kaa the python in the jungle landscapes of India. Griffin begins to understand his position in the greater American society through his comparison with the rest of the society he lives in. It is through constant comparison that we improve or fine tune our art of knowing. What was previously known superficially soon reveals its inner workings if we delve into the inner parts. This is the basis of literature, the art of using comparisons in the real world through the use of imagination to develop understanding to the level where what was previously little understood gets to be known comfortably enough to explore further meanings. One can use a tree as a symbol of comparison and is granted the poetic licence to use to represent any entity that has roots (beginnings), stems (processes), and branches (the climax). Families have been likened to trees for a reason; they come from somewhere though the seeds thereof can oftentimes not be traced: but people still do know that there must have been some seed somewhere in a misty past. This seed has become the primary point that the deeper metaphysical and philosophical human sciences always focus on. From time to time, a given field will come up with a supposed answer of the moment that is later refuted by yet another finding. However, human understanding of the origin still progresses towards some point of oblivion. We may never fully understand where the origins of knowledge lie in the history of time, but we can still draw some veritable answers through the literature we write and the questions that we find asked therein by some of the more enlightened minds whose level of understanding of the world renders them doyens of human knowledge. These are the people that know that it does not help much to consider any given issue from its midway point or to hold the notion that what one sees in the end is the main fact in the ultimate. The reality is that all literary issues have their origins somewhere; there is always a philosophical principle of causality to consider because all things have their point of beginning that has to be known to be understood, or, sometimes understood to be known. This is the case with the two protagonists discussed, Mowgli and Griffin, with the former taking baby steps in an unfamiliar environment devoid of his human kin and the latter in an environment where his human kin are similar but his mind is devoid of such an environment’s basic rules of engagement. Both figures know through seeing and experiencing, but both figures can only get the needed levels of understanding through experience and engagement. This is the basis of human experience, to know and to understand, or, to understand for one to know. We are now in the throes of an experience we did not know before this moment, and it will take some while to understand it. Like the bubonic plague in Albert Camus’ The Plague, the figures are still similar to the ones that we have at this point in time, only the changes in the progress of history and technology are different. This means that we can take cue from what has previously been written on plagues before to deal with what we are experiencing at this point in time. We have to understand that an epidemic means death for many even if we do not know what type of plague it is that we are dealing with at any given point in time. It is true that epidemiology gives what we may term a ‘precise’ definition of what a plague is all about, but it is the literary stories told with regard to it that will determine the attitude of the people in terms of their behaviour when it comes to dealing with it. There is always the need to foster a culture of understanding as soon as something is known or identified. This is because of the simple reality that what is known but not understood stands a greater chance of being misinterpreted and therefore not given the appropriate kind of treatment. With regard to any type of phenomenon in the world, literature teaches that the wisest move is that which strives first to understand the basis of any matter that has to be dealt with, to find the root cause first before attempting to unravel the pieces with which the entity in question is made of. This means that one should always bother to get into the finer details of any entity or question they come across before drawing conclusions or making any major decisions on it. Blundering on with the foolish notion that it shall reveal its true form as the path progresses is the way of the gambler, and adopting this pattern that blindly confronts issues does not guarantee that the phenomenon will ever be understood in full. First understanding the basis of anything is the first step towards attaining full understanding of the inner ramifications of an entity. First understand the simple before going to the complex, for it is the surest way to reaching the reasonable conclusion, a right point of destiny, and a satisfactory result. The butterflies spoken of in the introductory paragraph travel towards a roosting ground they somehow primarily know only their progeny will reach, but they still fly on because it is some universally and instinctive pattern of migration followed from the beginnings of their kind’s time. Human knowledge systems have come to a point where there are too many questions from different sides on issues many already know. The quest for the so-called ‘human freedoms and liberties’ by the human race stands to mess up the equation in terms of adopting the right way when it comes to dealing with issues pertinent to ensuring harmonious progress and dealing with challenges that may come along the way. We already know and understand that the success of any struggle depends on us being in perfect synchrony when crossing to the other side. We have clear examples presented in the different forms of literature about the importance of working together, but the misunderstanding of our freedoms and liberties may just prove to be our undoing. Unlike the wandering monarch butterfly, the modern human mind seems bent on too much knowledge about everything. The idea that some part should remain hidden or that certain things should not be fully exposed is what defines the idea of romance in literature. This ideal has worked all fine through the course of time and it is only now where people feel they should understand more than they know. We already know that flu is dangerous, but it seems that people only understand its danger through the death statistics. There is a developing culture of human beings not wanting to comply even if what they are forewarned about poses immediate danger. Perhaps the reality of the moment is that we do not want to understand even if we know, or that we do not understand that what we know may be the only truth we have that can save us into the future where we can make a better tomorrow. There is a need to understand that what we know evolves as much as we do as human beings, that what was once harmless becomes as dangerous as shown by the seasons in a human being’s life. First toothless and harmless, the human being’s potential and propensity for danger grows as they grow and gather more knowledge on their path of life. This could be the case with the diseases and tendencies as human society progresses towards some desired point of destiny wished or planned. Kipling’s If was not just a poem; it was a whole lesson on the modesty we should now adopt to live to see tomorrow. Tšepiso S. Mothibi