You’re Surviving, Not Thriving: Life With Social Anxiety

So yesterday, or maybe it was the day before yesterday, I tried to kill a wasp that had made its way into my house.

One thing you might not know about me, if you don't know me in person, is that I hate large bugs, especially ones that fly and that have stinkers.

Can't stand them.

Actually, that's not entirely true.

As long as they stay outside in their element, I can deal with them.

But if we are in an enclosed space together, it is a different story.

Anyway.

Here I am.

I'm trying to kill this wasp.

And I missed its body when I used the fly swatter, but I hit its wing.

So it was still alive.

And it just had a very badly injured wing, which is not any better.

But for a while, I just kind of watched it for a few minutes.

I watched it crawl around with this feeble wing.

And what was interesting, what I noticed is that technically it could survive in this state.

Technically, it certainly wouldn't be easy because it can no longer do what it is supposed to do, which is fly, but it was doable.

It can still breathe.

Its body can still perform all of the necessary physiological processes.

I think that's the right word there.

Physiological, um, It can find and eat food with substantial effort, of course, because it can no longer fly again.

But what about all of the other important things that it can't do anymore? Because it can't fly.

It can't protect itself against threats.

It can't get back to its nest with its community of other wasps.

It can't make and reproduce as easily as it previously could.

And everything else that you can think of that is now so much harder for this wasp because this one part of his life is not right.