• F/15/[email protected]@sh.itjust.works
    22·
    2 天前

    My favorite spiders are jumping spiders. They’re agile and playful and responsive and utterly harmless for people. I can still remember the day I killed a jumping spider on accident while trying to shoo it off of my pants, and that was decades ago. I’m sorry little fella, I thought you’d scoot, not smear. Now I’m extra careful with any spider I’m handling.

  • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
    41·
    2 天前

    It’s funny how I go out of my way to avoid harming spiders in my house, but then I hop on my bike and ride the trails, murdering thousands of critters - bugs, mice, frogs, you name it - and I don’t lose any sleep over it. It’s just a byproduct of my hobby, and since I’m not acutely aware of each little crunch, it doesn’t register. The only time I even pay attention to it is when the baby frogs spawn and there are millions of them. I try to avoid them as best I can, but for each one I manage to avoid, I probably crush 30 others.

  • InvalidName2@lemmy.zip
    9·
    2 天前

    If you think YOU’RE feeling bad, how do you think the beetle felt?

    When I got my first (bb) gun as a kid, it did not take long for me to make my first kill. There were some sparrows hopping around in a tree in my backyard while I was out there shootin’ mah gun unsupervised (as was the style at the time). I pointed, I pulled the trigger. I shot and killed one of the birds.

    And then I walked up to have a glance at the poor bird. Fortunately it was dead. It had a little bullet hole and a bit of blood spilled out. But it was limp when I picked it up.

    I felt terrible about it. I think I might’ve even cried. My dad told me not to do that again, and offered the helpful observation “at least it died quickly”.

    So along those lines, I hope your former beetle at least died quickly. In truth, a quick passing is almost a blessing. So many organisms linger at the end, humans included. You might’ve spared this one creature.

    And back to the sparrow, I have mostly absolved myself of my avian murder since now as an adult I’ve come to realize that the bird I shot was an invasive European Sparrow.

    So along those lines, I hope if your former beetle didn’t die quickly then perhaps it was an otherwise ecologically devastating invasive species and you actually did the right thing by murdering it.

    • BassTurd@lemmy.world
      6·
      2 天前

      When I was young, upper single digits probably, I had a 1 in a million shot with a rock and an arm sling shot and hit a flying barn swallow out of the air. Killed it. I ended up burying it and putting a cross made of wood bark on it. Felt bad. That was decades ago and still remember.

  • ElcaineVolta@kbin.melroy.org
    104·
    2 天前

    empathy and compassion are great qualities, and in short supply! maybe consider looking into veganism if you haven’t already. aligning your lifestyle to your values can be liberating!