Grounded: A Cicada and Human Instinct
Cicadas, more commonly known as singers in The Bahamas, are flying insects that are known for the chorus of loud buzzing they sing in the summer months. They’re elusive, staying high up in the tops of tree canopies to project their voices further, but if you have ever seen one, or the brown, papery exoskeletons they leave stuck onto tree trunks, then you’d know that they look just like big houseflies. I once thought they only lived for a few days, like flies do, but they can actually live up to 17 years, far longer than most other insects. This might seem like a lucky outcome for them—however, not very much of their long lifespan is truly lived. In fact, almost their whole lives are spent as juveniles, restricted in what they can do. Cicadas spend almost all of their 17 years confined to the ground they’re nested under, suckling on the sap that is drip-fed to them from the roots of trees above, and patiently counting the days until they can emerge. Finally, when the time comes, they dig themselves out from the ground, tear off their exoskeletons, stretch out their wings, and, at last, enter the world—but at this point, will only have a few weeks to live in it.
Like cicadas, many humans spend around 2 decades of their lives focused on preparing for their future. We go to primary school to prepare for high school, then to high school to prepare for college, and then to college to prepare for our careers. The things we’re expected to prioritize during this time are related to the future rather than the present, and for some people, these things are practically all they do. As a college student, I’m nearing the end of this cycle, and recently, I’ve felt like time passes me by, that I'm so fixated on the years I have in the future that I let the years I have now slip away.
I waste the present. I’m so busy with school, with preparing for the future, that I barely have time to do anything else. 16 waking hours in a day sounds like a huge amount of time on paper, but frustratingly, I can barely do anything I want with it. Getting ready to go to campus takes time. My commute takes time. Classes take time. Eating lunch takes time. Studying takes time. Planning for the next day takes time. Just sitting and trying to catch myself after this barrage of activity takes time. Everyone just tells me to manage my time better, and I also tell myself I'll learn better time management, but I don't even have time to do that. I follow this routine unfailingly, being drip-fed lectures, papers, and exams like cicadas are drip-fed tree sap, hoping that even though I just passively accept whatever is given to me, it'll benefit me in the future and ultimately pay off.
Many of my peers also have this problem and, aside from complaining and making bleak jokes (they say things like “All of this just to die” and laugh), don’t do anything to change it. It just is what it is. Seemingly all of our society does it, and it would be too much to push back or question it. I’ve read before that animals’ instincts aren’t just controlled by their genetics, but also by the behavior they observe and copy. I wonder if this way of life is like an instinct for me and other humans like it is an instinct for cicadas.
When cicadas do finally emerge, shedding their exoskeletons is a long, almost ceremonial process. A hole splits open along their back, and the light hits the colorful skin underneath for the first time. Over several hours, they crawl themselves out and their wings unfurl like sails, ready to carry them wherever they’d like to go. They're finally able to realize the potential that had been locked away underground all those years, the small, dull shells that constricted them left behind.
The moment I get home and set down my backpack, all I want to do is crash into my bed. Even if I do find myself with free time, after spending all day working my brain into mush, I don’t have the mental energy to decide what to do with it. The sheer number of things in my backlog that I want to do—hobbies, personal projects, any and all non-school-related tasks—makes choosing feel impossible. And so, because of my analysis paralysis, time escapes me again. I feel stuck in my shell, unable to shed or even stretch. I wonder how long it will take for me to break out, to start actually living. I hope it won’t be so late like it is with cicadas.
I think about the cicadas who lived out their life expectancy and died before they could do anything with their lives. If they thought that it was unfair that they had 17 whole years to live but were restricted in what they could do for almost all that time. I’m beginning to worry that this could be my fate, watching my life go by while thinking of all the things I could be doing but don’t. Often, in the middle of being consumed by my studies, I re-enter reality and realize I haven’t done things I thought I would have done days, weeks, or months ago. Things I can only fantasize about doing while stuck in a never-ending cycle. Because the cycle doesn’t really stop once you graduate college and start a career. It then goes to finding an entry-level job to prepare for a better job, then getting a better job but trying to work your way towards promotions, and then preparing for retirement, and then finally, you “make it” and don’t need to prepare anymore, but at that point, most of your life has already been spent. You spend almost your whole life preparing for the future but don’t even have a lot of “future” to enjoy. In fact, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that a lot of humans, like cicadas, don’t truly live until the end of their lives—if at all.
I said earlier that I thought this way of life was a human instinct, but if it is, I don’t think it’s innate or unchangeable. I could’ve resigned to this and acted like it just is what it is, but instead, I’m learning better time management, and all the semesters spent on assignments and projects and getting good at planning have actually paid off. Science doesn’t really know how cicadas are able to count down the years until they emerge, but a theory is that they keep track of seasonal changes by observing the tree roots above, watching for some signal that the time is right. For some people, maybe their signal to emerge, to start living, is after they graduate college, or during a midlife crisis, or after they retire, but for me, writing this essay was my signal. Now, I feel like a cicada beginning to claw its way out of the ground.
