The way of the moth
A male bog moth sits on an oak leaf when he suddenly catches the scent of a female moth. She may be more than a mile away. The wind is blowing, stopping, and blowing again; changing directions at every moment. Predators lurk around each corner, but the male bog moth is transfixed, and his ability to find his way to the female moth through all these obstacles is incredible.
This is how I learned about infotaxis; a search algorithm for determining the source of an odor in a rapidly changing environment. A male moth chooses its path without any preference for downwind or upwind travel. The moth will fly in many different directions, often zigzagging and seemingly at random, ignoring what might be energetically conservative. The strategy of the male bog moth is to choose a path that maximizes the expected rate of information gain rather than just following the nearest, fleeting whiff of the odor.
I tend to shy away from anthropomorphizing, but like the female moth's pheromone hitting the male moth's antenna, a question stuck in my mind and wouldn't let go:
Can a moth's search pattern for a mate teach us something about our search for loving-kindness?
Finding love and belonging in this world is not easy. Like the male bog moth, we have a lot of obstacles in our way. The environment is dynamic and the odor of love seems to be fleeting. How do we search for love in this world? Let me speak for myself.
I was raised in a southern Christian home and was given a theology that I would now describe as evangelical fundamentalist. We believed that the Bible was univocal and inerrant, and that belief in Jesus was the one and only way to escape eternal damnation. If there was any love to be found in the world, it was God's love. Period. This was the map I was given, but as I grew older and more independent, that map quickly became untenable.
I have always had a questioning mind, and this part of me was encouraged. I was told to ask tough questions and to dig deeper into God's Word. I took it all very seriously, but once I left the bubble of my home and my church, my information intake began to conflict with the information from my upbringing.
The cost of this curiosity was high. When this new information clashed with my theological map, I felt angry and betrayed. The map didn't match the environment. It felt incomplete and insufficient. I realized I had to make a choice: maintain my belonging within my comfortable circle, or risk estrangement as I followed my curiosity into the wild and messy world. I chose the risk.
I started to prioritize information intake (infotaxis) over the boundaries of my given belief system. What I have found is that my capacity to love has expanded.
This is the infotaxis of love: an insatiable curiosity and a deep willingness to listen to those on the fringes of our world. It is radical in the face of convention. It seeks out those that are marginalized. It speaks truth to power. I believe this expansive curiosity--this zigzagging toward understanding--is the heart of what loving your neighbor really means. It might even be the spirit of radical inclusion Jesus demonstrated, a spirit many institutions have unfortunately traded for certainty.
With love, there is nothing in between heart and heart.
Words are born from longing,
Truth is born from the real taste.
And one who tastes it, knows it;
One who tries to explain it, lies.
--Rābiʼa al-ʼAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya
When the moth begins his flight, he has no perfect image of the female; he only has a dynamic probability map of her location. The map is uncertain and he wrestles with the wind and the environment. He circles around, crossing back and forth over the same path.
"Poor thing," someone says. "He's running around in circles."
Yet, in this aimlessness information is being collected, and the moth creates an image of his lover across space and time. The bog moth's wings are orange and beautiful. He flits across his pathless path on a wayward journey to love. Where else would it be found?
How wide is your personal search for love? Are you willing to lose the scent of the familiar path and start casting for connection?