The Thrum of the Ants

One

It is easy to lose oneself in the clamour of the city. Discontent is a subtle vibration that pervades even the most tranquil residential cul-de-sac. Many wide-eyed vendors promise their own balms for the noise.

The businessman is a master of finance, but he is utterly, irredeemably convinced that at the centre of his being is a Self. There are no salves for such an all-encompassing delusion. You would need at least a litre of the stuff, and such a volume is impractical for many travellers. In the city, enlightenment is the sorry victim of supply and demand.

The businessman knows that the answer is to get away from it all. On the train, arid yellow hills leap up as squat brick houses fade away, and small, determined pockets of forest canter past the businessman's grubby window. The lunch trolley offers dry sandwiches, wet water, and litres of salve. The businessman frowns at the squeal of the trolley's wheels, but waves the bother away.

The train terminates at the edge of the desert, where the sun beats down on the platform tarmac. The businessman reaches into his satchel, opens a packet of vacuum-sealed tumbleweed, and rolls them gently along the station. Other passengers look on in quiet admiration. This is clearly a man of means.

The businessman has a clear mandate: find himself. In the silence of the desert, he has reasoned, the only noise must be the quiescent chugging of the Self; and once found, it may be tamed, soothed, and armed to grapple with the hubbub of the world once again. It is a tedious thing to search so desperately where there is nothing to be found, but the businessman is a man of contract, not insight. His accountants are certainly insightful, but their expertise cuts off at the bottom line, and anyway, they had other holiday plans.

Two

Accoutrements adorn the businessman's perspective, many of which point to the existence of the Self. He can be angered, saddened, and made to laugh in predictable ways, and he always sneezes in threes; his core bobs, unchanging on the waves of time. The world is decidedly Other, air-gapped from the Self by the calloused skin of the feet on which his traipses through it. He feels grim satisfaction, not pain, when he mows his front lawn. Other people are surely part of the world, but the businessman is not. He does not watch his thoughts emerge; they are him.

The businessman has a small hut that sits on the outskirts of the desert. Battered metal pots hang from wall hooks, the tap splutters dust, and outside, in the cracked red earth, a lush tree with pointed leaves searches determinedly for moisture. The businessman brought his own water, and the tap and the tree look on enviously, unlikely allies.

Three

Near the hut is a spear-like anthill that stands proudly atop a sprawling lattice of tunnels. The ants do not have a working metro network, but they are seeking construction approval, and many cycle to work.

An anthill is a complex biological system capable of introspection and external exploration. Ants know nestmates from enemies. Proposed new nesting grounds that do not receive a quorum of approval from the anthill's scouts are passed over, and the cartography department is well remunerated, but there are limits to the anthill's cognition, of which the businessman is well aware.

Negotiating with a colony of ants is extremely difficult. This is partly because they don't factor the relative strength of the US dollar into their demands, but more fundamentally, they simply refuse to acknowledge the businessman's existence, and this significantly weakens his bargaining position.

Four

The businessman has a meditation mat which is stained and frayed at the edges. He lays it between the thirsty tree and the anthill, places a metal singing bowl on the red earth, and sits on the mat with crossed legs. The air is still and hot, and there is no noise. The businessman closes his eyes.

Each thought rumbles around, a catalyst for the next in the chain. Over time, the stream slows to a trickle; space appears between the businessman and his thoughts, like two friends parting ways. The businessman is not his thoughts, but there simply must be an observer for all that is going on. He is the Self, watching from a single point of consciousness, real but with no spatial extent. There is an electricity to the businessman's existence, a deeply-held conviction of substance, and out here, nothing but the Self could be the source.

In time, as the businessman listens to nothing and his mind rides the pulse of his blood around his body, the anthill reveals its thrum.

Five

At first, the thrum is imperceptible, and passersby are none the wiser. They take photographs of the desert hut to preserve the wondrous and unparalleled scene for later reflection; but those wretched renditions cannot hope to capture its lively reality.

But the businessman has occasion to test the quality of the silence surrounding his Self as it bubbles and churns. The thrum is a low, deep vibration, the layered confluence of myriad staccato rhythms, the pitter-patter of billions of tiny feet tap-tap-tapping in the tunnels; and the murmuring of a thousand conversations. It has infinite points of origin, but each is meaningless except in synergy with the rest. The thrum is deafening, and it exhausts the businessman: its individual constituents are impossible to place, but somehow, he feels each one, hears infinitesimal silences between beats.

The businessman rolls up his mat at the end of each day, and each day, brave ants roll up with it. Taken from the context of their prideful hill, they are meaningless, hollow dots. The ants totter in circles, exposed automatons with no loop to follow.

The businessman watches these ants with interest. They are very honest with themselves, he thinks: they do not have a Self, but they do not seem to care, and they do not try to find one in the dust on the wooden hut floor. This is probably good, because the businessman does not leave Selves lying around, and they certainly would not fit inside an ant.

Six

The businessman sits by the anthill for many days. The ants are absorbed in a monotonous routine of subsistence, and when they write home, they express themselves obliviously with platitudes and cliches. But the anthill is a technicolour temple of transcendental progress: it grows large, and its tendrils reach further and further from its nucleus. The businessman observes the curious consciousness of the anthill. It hums within itself; it knows its needs, its size, and the capabilities of its populace. The incarceration rate is extremely low.

The businessman turns again to consider his own Self. Here in the desert, where there are no distractions but the thrum of the ants, he is laid bare. He radiates with the vitality of a living thing, but he has no useful words for the acute details of his inner being. Where is it? The businessman traces his preferences, values, and instincts to the colourless, directionless place in his mind from which they emerge unannounced. It is quite cold there, and someone has forgotten to water the palm trees.

Seven

On the train, the businessman sits in silent contemplation. His black shoes are covered in a fine red dust. The night sky is polluted with the brightness of the city and its spires loom up from the horizon.

The businessman sits on his bed, hands tightly clasped against the assault of the frenetic city. He stirs and loosens his grip on himself. The city drones around him, a discordant vibration with infinite points of origin.