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That’s How We Roll

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You gotta love dung beetles.

All day, every day, they’ve got their faces in the worst stuff we can imagine. To them, it’s no big deal, but to us, spending life as a dung beetle is literally what it would mean to lose the reincarnation lottery.

By Kay-africa (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By Kay-africa (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

The good news is a dung beetle’s life is less than three years long.
The bad news is … for the entire time, you have to be a dung beetle.
But the latest bit of redemptive good news is … dung is not your entire world – there’s more. In fact, there’s the entire Milky Way.

Researchers have discovered that dung beetles use the stars to navigate their dung ball placement. But it’s not just a couple of little stars, it’s the center of the Milky way – a strip of light crossing the night sky that apparently gives them the reference point they need to know their dung ball is traveling in a straight line.

And by “dung ball”, I mean “your day’s work”, whatever that is. And pushing it in a straight line is quite an achievement. I’ve been putting my shoulder to various dung balls around for almost 40 years, and I can say with certainty that they haven’t traveled in anything like a straight line. I’m certain I’ve done some curlicues and loop-de-loops, and for quite a long time sat still in the very same place. But dung beetles reckon by the stars, and their efforts are rewarded with measurable progress. If a beetle veers off course, it climbs up on top of its dung ball and does a little “dance”, by which it gets its bearings and resumes its task.

I assume dung beetles will remain here after we’re gone because everything poops, and a key factor in survival is to have steady work. But in 4 billion years, when The Milky Way collides with the Andromeda Galaxy, the beetle’s sky-marker will be re-arranged. Will that signal the Dung Ball Apocalypse?

When you feel you are headed off-course, how do you find the right direction?

63 thoughts on “That’s How We Roll”

  1. Too profound for me to respond to at the moment….

    I suspect that the fact that I don’t have a ready answer to the question is part of my problem:)

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  2. I’m not sure I ever have gotten back on course. Most times, after having been spun around, I have set off again in the direction that offered the greatest ease and the best scenery. I don’t enjoy hiking through swamps or prickly ash or climbing vertical rock faces. That would explain my relative lack of success in the conventional sense and why I’ve always pretty much stayed on the same level ground and not reached any great heights.

    Once you’ve thrown out all the maps, you still need something to navigate by. It’s amazing that something so small and lowly looks to the stars for guidance. With that to compare to, humans should be able to achieve miracles!

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    1. If people would pay more attention to the amazing things that occur in nature I think they would do a lot better, maybe even achieve some miraculous things.

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  3. This is a metaphoric metacopia today and a cornuphoric cornucopia.
    My faith is what gets me back on track, eventually. Bach helps. Wearing one of my old beaten-n caps. Silent dark. Raggedy sweat pants, over-sized t shirt and sweat shirt. and bare feet. Reminding myself of the cycles of history, personal and large, that roll much like a dung ball. A bike ride. Journaling.

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    When I have wandered off course LIFE itself starts slapping me around. It is as if some little angel who sits on my should starts yelling, “I’m closing down this show if you don’t change course!” No job appears, the marriage becomes intolerable, the house is for sale and no buyers emerge. Then it all grinds to a halt until I do what needs to be done. Often during these periods, I do neglect to look at the stars to navigate, then I bumble around bumping into walls until I look up.

    Painful transitions, they are, but necessary.

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    1. A small fact of physics. Roll a bike straight downhill and it will self correct until it loses momentum. Which is much like your sharply-tuned metaphor. The trick, like the bike, is not to lose momentum I suppose.

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      1. if you run a water source through a valley it will follow the path of least resistance moving out of the way of rocks and impediments until with time it wears through them thus going with the most direct path but by that time the meandering on the other side of the impediment has affected the flow of the stream and will require self correcting with the new factors built into the equation. thats the way i feel about life. you can move to the desert where you can avoid all those damn streams but then you have those sand dunes…

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  5. Good morning. I’m not very good at getting myself back on tack and staying on track. Hopefully, if I get too far off track, I will stop and think about what I am doing and come up with a better plan. To correct my course I tend to rely on past experience and perhaps some advice from people who know me or other people who might be able to help. Good ideas about how to proceed often seem to pop into my head shortly after I wake up in the morning.

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  6. I suppose there are several ways people can try to find a new sense of direction when they lose their way. My way, for better or worse, is to go inside my head and ruminate about things until I finally understand what happened and what I need to do. I used to do this by walking my dog and reflecting while we moved through pretty country. But where I walked was really not important. And while the dog was a pleasant partner, he was not necessary. What brings me back to balance in my life is hours and hours of reflection.

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  8. i find getting off track may be the thing i do the very best of anything i do. if i ever get stuck in a situation where i head down a path and dont get sidetracked off into some totally non related going nowhere ditty, i wont know what to do. all my best stuff comes from faking it while im doing the look where i ended up scramble. it may not be ideal but it sure is familiar. it may not be comfortable but it sure feels like home.

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  9. ok, a little more coffee and reading over the insights of other Baboons, and I am feeling a little closer.

    Like other Baboons, finding some quiet time and space is important to regain focus (finding said quiet is often it’s own challenge, but let that pass). Failing that, I am a list maker. Somehow, putting thoughts on paper and then trying to organize them into cohesion is a ritual I find helpful (it also looks like you are actually doing something, so you are less likely to be asked to participate in someone else’s focus or lack thereof).

    In most workplaces I have been in, “breaks” are considered to be important for things like eating (and mandatory, unless, of course, the powers that be really, really need you to not take that break and get something done), but if you simply need to get away and clear your head, there is an automatic negative attributed to it (you must be “stressed out” or “upset” to require that kind of break-not a helpful attitude).

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  10. I think there are many styles that people have from zig zagging all over the place to sticking to a fairly straight path. In the end I think there will probably be some correcting of course for any style of moving forward. Too much time on the straight path is probably not a good thing and even the person who thrives on wandering all over the place can get too far off track.

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  11. i seem to be inspired by goals. i seldom look at the reality of the situation but instead look at what i want for the conclusion and work backwards. once you know where you are headed the path kind of shows itself. there are interesting hurdles but heck thats what makes it fun. if it were easy and obvious everybody would have already done it.

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    1. That is exactly how my terrier thinks. If the path is blocked, take your eyes off the path and look around for another option There is always a back door, alternative route, or hidden doorway. You just have to look. And if all else fails, dig a tunnel. After years of yelling at our dog for jumping up on the table to steal food when our backs were turned, we have wised up and just move the chairs back when we leave the table so she can’t use them to get up. Well, she figured out that if she stands on her back legs and uses her front paws, she can pull the place mats and anything on them onto the floor.

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      2. I think my way is a bit like your terrier’s – just keep trying to find new routes. As long as I have a sense that I’m headed in the right direction towards the goal, the route itself can be changeable. If I”m unsure of the goal, well, that gets dicier – but that’s when you find a good rock to sit on to re-orient (as others have mentioned in different ways), enjoy what’s there with you at your sitting place and then find the best route to the next destination. Or, like the terrier, pull the placemats down until you find what you want. 🙂

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  12. You might want to consider clearing the table when you’re done eating, Renee. Just a crazy idea, but it just might work. 🙂 (said she who has a big dog who can reach just about anything edible left on a table or counter.)

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    1. my dogs are all wonderful spirits who plot together to teach me there is no correct answer. the biggest now is belt buckle high but he is super mellow. the hype is the smaller of the pair who eggs on her brother and finds enough to get into without being able to reach the countertops. the basst knows something is coming sometime and is ready for the second it happens . so far life has proven her right , a crumb a dropped something or other a forgotten loaf of bread on the close side of the counter that can be reached with a basset leap ( i have never seen this but it has happened numerous times) dogs do teach you that you are who you are. there are millions of variations of who to be and how to go through life. you can train a dog but only to be a follower of instruction not on how to process what they find out there in the world.

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    2. We do clear the table. She likes to go up and check for crumbs. We used to have a fox terrier who I think had hidden springs in her legs, since she could jump up so high from a sitting position that she could grab things off the counter.

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      1. My wife was scanning through decorating magazines at B&N, and found two pictures in two different magazines that showed cats curled up on kitchen counters.

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      2. Terriers of every kind are nothing if not determined. We had an Airdale once, she was a piece of work, a beautiful and loving dog, but determined as all get out. Bess, was her name, and she accounts for half of our 34 years worth of dog stories.

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  13. Afternoon–
    I’m working an event today that has young musicians playing with the local symphony. Listening to classical music being performed is a pretty nice way to spend an afternoon.

    I hate those days when I can’t stay focused and feel like I’m headed off in 48 different directions. It takes a lot of mental energy and purposeful dedication to stay on task long enough to get at least one thing done, then my day kinda starts to straighten out.
    And maybe that’s the thing about having a routine. Life may be getting crazy but if you still have to do A, B and C then I think that helps.
    Several years ago I had a bad spell. I felt like I had lost my moorings. Wrote pages of journals, saw a therapist, cried. But it was winter and I had too much spare time on my hands.(because milking cows and doing chores is ALL routine and doesn’t take much brain power so the brain was free to wander off and get me in trouble. Yes, I know I just contradicted myself…)
    When spring came and I got busy I my brain settled down and life got back to normal.

    But never underestimate the power of standing outside for a few minutes everyday. Filling the bird feeders, feeding the chickens or letting the dog out. Stand there and look at the sky or stars or trees or birds and *something*!
    It helps you keep the perspective.

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  14. It seems like every time I get into a troubled place, a different something gets me out. Several of you have touched on tactics I’ve used:
    – listmaking (if there’s a real choice to be made, a “pros and cons” list, for instance)
    – reading about the problem (that’s a great one for putting off a decision)
    – taking time to journal or really think it through
    – talking about it with someone intelligent
    – I cry pretty easily and find it can often be cathartic, so both the thinking and the talking ones may involve this

    I believe what has worked most recently is right down Ben’s alley – get outside – maybe walk, at least around the back forty – feel the breeze hear the sounds (birds combined with freeway traffic) and see the sky; best if I can get out to some open space where the city is behind me and I can see how much of the world is not touched by my little (though big) problem. Sunsets and moonrise are good for this.

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  15. I’ve been a little short on equilibrium today due to a heating emergency. When I got up this morning the air temperature in the house had dropped to about 60 degrees. I am not virtuous enough to maintain that temp deliberately, hence the 6:30 emergency call to the heating company. They told me it would be afternoon before someone could get here, and I had a volunteer shift, so I went off and tended to that. The house was about 52 degrees when I got home.

    Jake the Heating Technician got here around 3:00 and it took about four hours for the house to return to a more normal temperature after his diagnostic & repair performance. The problem was a sensor that is supposed to shut off your pilot light if your system is unsafe – when the sensor starts to fail, it shuts down the entire system just to be on the safe side, because you shouldn’t be operating it without a good quality sensor.

    I am now rewriting my will leaving everything to Jake the Heating Technician in gratitude.

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    1. In the last month, 2 vehicles have had significant problems (a completely dead battery, and a key that broke off in the ignition), the kitchen faucet is duck taped together awaiting the plumber, my office dictaphone has busted, Ginger Pie, the orange tabby, has peed three times on daughter’s UGG boots, and the dishwasher and the dryer have needed major repairs. The Jakes of this world are blessed.

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      2. What is it about the last three months and our machines ( not to mention my poor battered body)? We have had a series of inconvenient problems, too:

        Flu that will not end
        Norovirus
        Reaction to Aleve combined with grapefruit resulting in severe gastric distress
        Break in at work
        Furnace broke on Christmas Day (the next day Minnegasco repaired this. My Hero)
        Lou got laid off and will begin a slightly early retirement
        I sprained my ankle.

        Are we done with this yet?

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    2. I felt the same way about the guy who replaced our water heater when the old one went kaput in a big way. Wanted to kiss the man (but feared that doing so might lead to legal action, or other action that might not have been intended).

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  16. Greetings! All wonderful ideas for remembering who we are and what our true path should be. What works for me is a good cry, a tough karate class, re-reading my favorite spiritual books like “Disappearance of the Universe,” “Autobiography of a Yogi”, “The Astonishing Power of Emotions” — stuff like that. Other things that are comforting when the s**t really hits the fan includes snuggling into my bed with the softest flannel sheets made on earth, watching several episodes of a good show on Netflix, bingeing on good chocolate or a good soak in a hot bubble bath. Sometimes a little escape makes it easier to see what really matters.

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  17. Dale put some links to information on dung beetles which I read because I am interested bugs. Actually, they are very interesting creatures even if they do spend a lot of time in piles of dung. I learned that Australia had a problem with too much buildup of cattle dung because the right kinds of dung beetles were not found there. The Aussie’s imported the right kind of dung beetles and those beetles cleaned up the cattle dung problem.

    Also it turns out that beetles need to make a bee line away from dung piles with guidance from the milky way because there are other dung beetles that will destroy their eggs and take over the dung ball as a food supply for their eggs.

    Of course, I know most people are not very interested in insects. They are wonders of nature in my opinion. I wouldn’t want to be a dung beetle, but I am fascinated by they way they can gather dung, make into a ball, and roll it across the ground using the milky way to stay on a straight line.

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    1. It is perhaps an obvious metaphor about the wondrous things these little bugs do with a bit of dung (when life hands you dung…turn it into something useful).

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    2. i always wonder as in horton hears a who if we are not a microscopic blip in the universe of some existence that is so big that the milky way is only a set of atoms zipping around in a circle and we a flea spec onone of those atoms. we are so intent on getting life right an i wonder if the life inside the dung beetles world or the guy who is looking at the milky way under a microscope think they are getting it right as oblivious to us as we are to them. bugs are interesting but no more so than the french or the giant squids or the super virus strains mentioned on cbs sunday morning today. i feel important until i realize that we all do all we can do. guided by the stars the moon the vibes that call out to us or the flip of a coin. aint life a trip. baboons ho…

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  18. My ‘counselor’ in recovery and sobriety motivated my by saying “Nothing changes when nothing changes”. Great writing and very inspiring. If these little bugs can find purpose and meaning in their lives, I definitely gotta persevere! Keep fighting the good fight, Dale.

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  19. Dung beetle, dung beetle, where do you roam?
    Rolled up this ball, and taking it home?

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, what’s in the ball?
    Food for my family, to feed one and all?

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, as food is it fit?
    We’ll eat it, we’ll, relish it, eat down every bit.

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, to eat that takes grit.
    Don’t be ridiculous, you talk like a twit.

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, you roll at a clip.
    Don’t stop me, don’t stop me, I’m hungry for (blip).

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, why can’t you stay?
    I’m following the path of the bright milky way.

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, your name, I teeheetle.
    I’m also know by the name scarab beetle.

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, that sounds like tomfoolery.
    Look and you’ll find, you’ll see me as jewelry.

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, now you sound groovy.
    I’m talking to Disney about making a movie.

    Dung beetle, dung beetle, that’s really good news.
    They promise my voice will be done by Tom Cruise.

    [What’s next, Baboons?]

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    1. dung beetle dung beetle you make a good topic
      eating dung in the desert or dung in the tropic

      dung beetle dung beetle you put your mind to it
      wake up every day and roll that crap. do it!

      dung beetle dung beetle singing this dung tune
      it will go on forever if left to baboons

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    2. I don’t know, but don’t you think we ought to make a children’s book out of it? (tim, where are you?) I can just see your illustrations, Clyde…

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    3. Dung beetle, Dung beetle, why don’t you just quit?
      Your job isn’t worth a warm bucket of spit.

      Dung beetle, Dung beetle, you labor and sweat,
      But who wants your treasure? What thanks do you get?

      Dung beetle, Dung beetle, with all due respect,
      Your dung was still worthless the last time I checked.

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  21. All right! May be there are some people who aren’t very interested in insects and who might turn their noses up at any mention of dung beetles. However, an aversion to insects in general, or at least to dung beetles, doesn’t seem to be found among the Babooners.

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