One of my profound regrets is the number of fireflies I caught in my jars during my childhood. I didn’t free them; I left them in the jar for the next night, but of course they never survived. And now, every summer, I only see a few of them, when there were so many when I was a child.
Like so many things, we can’t see into the future to know what consequences our actions might bring. We end up as elder citizens wishing we had used more (or any) sunscreen as kids, or treated our joints better, or treated other people better. That more benign treatment should have also been extended to our environment. A case in point are the smaller firefly populations, which I feel personally responsible for. Maybe my collecting them did not lead to their dwindling numbers, but I can’t help but feel guilty about it, as if I am at least partially to blame.
Hindsight isn’t always helpful, but is often guilt-inducing.
I express some of my thoughts about all of this is my poem, “Childhood’s Paradise Lost,” which you can watch here on YouTube.
MUSOFYR 