Butterflies Are Going To Kill Me

I have this love for butterflies ever since I read this passage in the Tao. All the lovely butterflies have been flying around lately and I fear for their lives. I watch them happily floating around the pasture while I milk the goats. Sometimes, when I'm lucky, they'll land on me for a moment. You don't know how many times I've almost crashed my van trying not to hit the butterflies. When I was on my long bike ride the other day, I saw so many that had been hit. Their little wings would be slowly fluttering while they died. In honor of the beautiful butterflies:

We should remember the innocent in life. The delicate, the gossamer, the beautiful. A butterfly lives for a few days. It comes into the world with very little reason except to fly and mate. It does not question its destiny. It does not engage in any alchemy to extend its lifespan or to change its lot. It goes about its brief life happily.

A butterfly is always attracted to the beautiful. Whether it is the sun on a blade of grass or the edge of a deep ruby rose, the butterfly spends its brief time dwelling on loveliness.
Even the angry and insane leave the butterfly alone. Why can we not learn to honor the innocence in one another? Maybe we spend too much time dwelling on the ugly. In the name of practicality and realism, we think about strategy, defense, territory, gain, and advantage. We are too late to be like the butterfly. But at least we can honor it, and move as closely as possible to its simple existence.