Of Bugs and Existence

As I delve in and out of pages of Murakami’s 1Q84 on an unbelievably hot October Sunday afternoon, something outside my window catches my attention. Back in Kolkata, it used to be crows and sparrows flying about looking for food and shade. Here in the outskirts of Gandhinagar, it is swans. An occasional peacock has also been spotted.
No, this is not about the natural beauty of Gandhinagar or my experience of Murakami. Those are topics for a later day. For now, let us while upon the strangeness of the passage of time. The weekend is almost over. The very weekend which we were wondering about, since we did not have anything to do. If you take time as a matter of hours, it will seem to be a passing bunch of swans. Sometimes it might appear beautiful to you. Sometimes, if you are not noticing, all you get to do is to experience it in other’s words like mine. But if you are like me, as in, if you take time as a matter of days, time seems to be even faster. Perhaps more like the light-bug that you spot one instant and in another, it’s gone. Then you spot it again, exactly the same as a while ago, perched nonchalantly. It might even be subject to your chagrin. But there is mostly nothing you can do about it and its persistent repetitiveness than live with it. There is nothing to blame the bug for. You chose to create the circumstances where the bug coexists with you. Now it is a part of your existence.
Talking about bugs, I think I am turning into  one myself. This weekend I gained three new wounds from bug bites on my right hand, which makes me quite symmetric with respect to bug bite wounds. I guess, one can’t just experience the pleasantries of nature without its persecution. But here’s to hoping I can compete with Spiderman.
Existence is highly questionable, especially when it is localized. I wonder if the fishes in an aquarium or rats in a warehouse feels the same doubts as me. The similarities being, we don’t really need to go out of the local domain that we currently are in. We exist here just fine. But, is it just an aquarium instead of an entire universe as we perceive it? An aquarium consisting of me and my life around me, rendered and obscured as per someone else’s wish, some higher power or power that I am unaware of.
Even if that is the case, does such a reflection upon it matter? Think about it. If I try to go beyond this existence and succeed. I succeed in exiting the aquarium. What then? The bugs are back again. I have to go.