What They Did to the Fireflies, and the Least of These
Reflections on cruelty, power, and the rise of dehumanizing regimes and questions I'm asking [plus, prompts]
Note: This essay includes a series of anecdotes and memories that touch on the themes of power and cruelty. These are my personal reflections as I attempt to make sense of what I observe unfolding in the world around me. If you resonate, I hope you read through to the end for a series of prompts that you might find helpful. Please know that this essay is not intended as a condemnation of individuals or even a specific gender; I’m not here to label anyone evil. This space welcomes curiosity with zero tolerance for cruelty, not even a crumb of it. To help maintain a safe and respectful space, comments are available only to paid subscribers.
The Cruel Games People Play
In this stage of life, I spend hours upon hours outdoors, watching my sons play baseball. Whether it’s fall, spring, or summer, I treasure this time. Both of my boys played on All-Star teams in June, which meant we spent nearly every warm afternoon and cool evening at a local baseball field.
My oldest son’s team performed well, winning the district tournament and advancing to the sectional championships. One perk for my younger son at his older brother’s games was the built-in crew of siblings to play with—many of them his former teammates.
On the evening of my oldest son’s final game, with the sectional championship on the line, my youngest son grabbed me by the hand to show me the discovery that had been entertaining the younger siblings for the final few innings of the game: a large anthill with an equally large and active ant colony.
Most of the boys were busy tracking ant trails and observing the ants' behavior. But others, I noticed, were plucking large, flying beetles out of the air and placing them in the ants’ paths. They told me that it was fun to watch the ants attack and kill the beetles and encouraged me to watch. I paused and declined their request, feeling unsettled by the joy and the strange thrill of power they seemed to find in torturing and killing the beetles. Their entertainment didn’t come off as a natural interest or curiosity in death—it came off as cruelty.
As a sensitive person and with my own convictions as a human and a mother, I stepped in with a gentle intervention and pivoted the boys’ play. But this moment reverberated through me, with flashes of past and present events colliding. The way this baseball game ended with cruelty seemingly rewarded.1 The national events that have been unfolding. A childhood memory resurfacing.
This moment at the baseball game and the others I’m about to describe have left me asking questions—ones you might be asking, too:
How does cruelty form and take hold?
How and why does one choose cruelty?
How do we raise children to choose wonder over violence, curiosity over control?
Why do some people delight in dehumanization and destruction?
What determines whether someone uses their power for ‘good’ or ‘evil, ‘creation’ over ‘destruction’?
What is my role and responsibility?
A Memory that Resurfaces: What They Did to the Fireflies
It was the early 90s, and my older brother and I had spent the summer day running around the spacious five acres of our backyard. We cooled off in the sprinkler and gulped down handfuls of plump mulberries that stained our small hands. It was summer as it should be—full of wonder and freedom and delight—like a kind of Eden.
As that particular summer day turned to dusk, some boys from down the street came over to play. At the same time, the fireflies were also beginning to make their nightly appearance. How I loved to watch their little bodies glow like little flickering stars in the darkening yard—a whole symphony of sparkling light against the darkening world.
These small creatures filled me with awe and wonder. As I enjoyed the way they lit up the yard and ran to cup them in my hands to behold their magic, the boys—my brother among them—appeared in front of me armed with baseball bats.
My stomach dropped as their baseball bats swung at the fireflies, and the boys laughed. Each bat sliced through the air, followed by quick smacking sounds, so soft but unforgettable. The boys’ cruel delight grew as the light from each firefly left a glowing trail on their wooden bats. But I was sickened and sobbed. I shouted at my brother and the boys to stop, but they wouldn’t.
I remember bursting into tears and running inside our house to enlist my mom’s help. But she didn’t stop them. Her response was along the lines of “boys will be boys.” She didn’t see the harm or the horror the way my little self did. I cried into my pillow, while outside the boys continued to crush the bodies of these small creatures and my little heart.
My heart broke for something so small and innocent, something alive and beautiful—life taken just for the fun of it. It confused me. I remember wondering, even then: Why didn’t anyone else care? Was I wrong to feel so deeply? Was I too sensitive?
It was the moment I first realized that some people did not value life as I did, caring for even the smallest of creatures. That some people would choose to cause harm instead of taking care. That we were and are not, in fact, in Eden anymore.
Wrestling with the Rise of Harm
As I processed both the boys torturing and killing the beetles at the baseball field and my childhood memory of the fireflies, I’ve been thinking about the events unfolding both locally and around the country. Many, myself included, see what’s happening as increasingly dehumanizing and cruel.
I want to interject here to be clear: I am in no way equating the life of a bug with that of a human being. But moments like these—where cruelty is casual, even celebrated, and life is devalued and harmed—have stayed with me and return when I see events unfold in similar yet much more severe ways.
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