In Praise of the Cockroach

To Achieve Unconditional Existence

Cold Lake, Alberta

Suppose one day you wake to find yourself transformed into a cockroach. What then?

Do you weep and mourn? Do you curse your sorry lot? Or execrate the day you were born? Do you stand in awe at the monstrous wretch you have become? Do you list about aimlessly? Do you succumb to apathy and nihilism? Do you pray to a divinity of your choice to reverse your grotesque metamorphoses? Do you simply kill yourself to be done with it all. Or, perhaps you merely contemplate the logistics of leaving your bed and catching your train.

Such reactions are, of course, the first that come to mind. But let us take a closer look at this creature—the cockroach. Is he truly to be loathed? Is his existence a sordid and dreadful one? Is one right to lament for such a creature? Must we be horrified by the possibility of such a transformation? We would be hasty to answer in the affirmative.

The cockroach is a more peculiar and interesting creature than one would first suspect, gazing upon his unassuming form scurrying over the floorboards. He is too often dismissed without understanding, squashed without sympathy. But let us look closer.

Far from a loathsome pest, I counter that the cockroach is an ancient and venerable creature. The cockroach evolved to its current general form over 300 million years ago. Since then, little change has occurred except minor specifications and adaptations. Despite the billions upon billions of cockroaches who have existed in the interim, his aspect has stayed largely the same since his formula for survivability was discovered so many millennia ago.

Indeed, the evolutionary recipe of the cockroach was perfected to maximize the persistence and vitality of his race. Once natural selection had devised a creature able to survive in any climate, under any duress, and with any degree of deprivation, the work was complete. There was no evolution possible beyond that point, for evolution implies a deficiency.

The cockroach has developed a reputation for survivability, and rightfully so. This little creature can survive in tropical climates or subarctic regions, existing comfortably in the arid heat or the winter chill. As such, cockroaches have become utterly cosmopolitan, flocking across the world in droves with the waves of globalization and settling in far corners of the earth. The cockroach—the generalist species par excellence—is a true citizen of the world, tied down by no parochial attachments. There is no niche for this creature. He defies the pull of geography that suspends most every being on earth.

Cockroaches are omnivorous creatures, indiscriminately devouring human foodstuffs, clothing, vegetation, or even the starch in book bindings. What is more, even with their diverse diet, they can survive without food for up to a month. In extreme cases, they have even been known to feast upon their deceased compatriots. To starve a cockroach is nigh impossible, for when he is deprived of nourishment, he begins to chew at his very own.

The cockroach has a thick exoskeleton formed of calcium carbonate, making him resistant to the torrents of abuse he faces from the rest of the animal kingdom. He endures the scorn of many, infiltrating the abodes of others, carrying disease and putrid odour, spreading his seed far and wide amid squalor and hardship, and paying little mind to his adversaries. He wears his shield on his back and effortlessly resists their attempts to destroy him.

The cockroach can survive decapitation—indeed, function remains both in the head and the body long after the two have been severed. He may live without breath for up to 50 minutes, and can survive long-term in low-oxygen environments (in which we humans would surely perish).

The forces of evolution, which often produce weak and maladaptive specimens, created a product of renowned genius in the indestructible cockroach.

Nor is the cockroach only protected against tangible threats, for he is exceptionally well-protected against radiation also. While inherently more resistant to bursts of radiation than we vertebrates, the cockroach is also protected given that its molting cycle occurs less frequently than most other insects, and this molting cycle, when cells are dividing, is when a creature is most susceptible to the vicissitudes of radiation. Given that cockroaches do not molt concurrently, the majority of the population would survive a short burst of radiation unscathed. In the case that we humans immolate ourselves on the levers of nuclear weapons, the cockroaches beneath our floorboards would inherit the earth.

It is not only in life that he is adamantine, but in reproduction also for his reproductive prowess is unparalleled. Given favourable conditions, a single pair of cockroaches may, within a few years, produce millions of progeny. Should you fail to vanquish them from your abode, their descendants in your home shall be as numerous as the sands of the earth. Few other creatures fester and propagate as successfully as the cockroach.

But that is not all. It is not enough to simply limit the population to a sole survivor to extricate their race. For, a single female cockroach is capable of reproducing by herself through pathenogenesis. Whereas a virgin birth may be a miracle to our race, to the cockroach it would hardly raise an eyebrow. Females may fertilize their own eggs through automixis, through which they give birth to females who may do the very same, causa sui.

In the search for a self-generating being, humans have long gazed up into the cosmos and speculated on the nature of divinity, contemplating an abstract unmoved mover or first cause. Perhaps they would have been better off peering into the dark corners of their home.

Far from a loathsome wretch, the cockroach is a rather impressive specimen. By acclimating to every environment, the cockroach is at home nowhere. He roves from place to place, being shoed away from whatever cranny he temporarily inhabits. The cockroach is utterly nomadic, but for that very reason, he is all but invincible—he is not dependent upon the land. The cockroach travels light, for he requires little.

If there is a single virtue which the cockroach embodies, it is humility (what is often called the prince of the virtues), for his unassuming form, free from ostentation or extravagance, harbours a bellicose will to survive which far outpaces his rivals. You may step on him without fear of retribution, mock him and scorn him, but he shall still thrive. Conversely, pride (what is chief of the vices) is conspicuously absent from the cockroach’s behaviour.

You may deprive him of light, oxygen, warmth, nourishment, and yet he exists. He may dwell in the most filthy and crepuscular of abodes—those too inhospitable for any other creeping things that creep upon the earth—and yet he exists. You may deprive him of all but the most foul of foodstuffs, and yet he exists. You may subject him to the biting cold or the acrid desert, and yet he exists. You may stomp on him, swat him, but his outer shell absorbs the blow, and so he exists. Drown him, beat him, poison him, starve him—and yet he will continue to exist.

The cockroach has achieved unconditional existence—a metaphysical condition previously ascribed to divinity alone. While, on one hand, this hardly bodes well for our sanitary conditions, on the other, this proves that the height of survivability is possible for mortal creatures such as us. The cockroach provides an example for us of near-invincibility.

Contrasting the world of cockroaches, our human societies are so very fragile. One rupture in our supply chains, and an entire city may be without food or fuel. One burst bubble in our financial world, and millions are reeling in poverty. One variable may change, and an entire sector may be deprived of employment overnight. A burst water line or a ruptured pipeline may render great swaths of people without water or heat.

On an individual level, this is equally true. Without a certain tool or technology, without the safety and comfort of a routine, without the familiar faces of loved ones, or without the reliable patterns of our parochial surroundings, many would simply cease to function.

Here the cockroach may provide a lesson for us. Many speak of the benefits of routine, of friends, of familiar surroundings, of specialization, of globalization... But perhaps these things hinder more than help. Perhaps it is wrong to recede into a dependence upon so many variables subject to change. Perhaps it is wrong for us to fall back upon a specialized niche, for when that Goldilocks zone vanishes in a blink, we are utterly devastated.

In such a condition, one’s existence is utterly contingent, dependent upon a multitude of factors which are hardly set in stone. On the contrary, they are ever in flux. The society around us whispers soothing bromides into our ears, attempting to convince us of the benefits of specialization and the division of labour, ever distracting us from the unavoidable fact of flux. The division of labour may be an enormous economic boon for a society, but from a metaphysical standpoint, it is utterly enervating.

Our unhealthy focus on specialization—on finding our perfect job, our perfect home, perfect spouse—in other words, a perfect little ecosystem in which we may exist—makes us weak. It makes our existence dependent upon all the variables working towards our pleasure, taking those variables as given.

Indeed, in the game of natural selection, it is the specialist species—the dodo bird, the woolly mammoth—who sooner perish when their habitat is ravaged. The generalists, such as rats, crows, and our noble cockroach, can survive these continual changes. Why, then, do we strive to imitate the dodo bird and the woolly mammoth, reeling in fear at the pesky cockroach? Would we not do better to imitate the being which has survived for 300 million years instead of those creatures which compose the graveyard of evolution?

I speak of specialization not only in an economic or general sense, but in a deeply personal sense also. If one’s happiness is contingent upon the obtainment of a particular set of circumstances, then such happiness was ephemeral from the very beginning.

It is far better that we break ourselves and be continually reshaped, rather then settle in a comfortable niche. We must expose ourselves to the vicissitudes of foreign and hostile environments, lest we become complacent in our provincial dependence. We must intentionally dwell in the depths of despair and discomfort, so that when these vales of darkness inevitably greet us, we are ready for them. We must make our flesh malleable, lest we become brittle and easily broken in two. We must learn to live without our comforts—only so may the concrete floor feel like a luxury mattress, and breadcrumbs taste like a sublime French pastry. Just as muscle reforms stronger only when it is broken under stress, so too do we become strong only when subjected to deprivation.

This is the path to unconditional existence.

The cockroach has undergone every trial imaginable, and it is these trials which have made him invincible. The dodo bird, on the other hand, living in blithe ease on the isle of Mauritius, free from any natural predators, was destroyed by a slight change in his surroundings. The modern man more closely resembles the dodo bird than the cockroach—and more nearly approximates the dodo’s evolutionary prowess also.

To those who fear the cockroach, I say to you: become one. To those who recoil at the very thought of his compact form, I say that you can only overcome such a phobia when you integrate the creature’s aspect into your very self.

Might we not look upon the cockroach as a virtuous and regal creature, rather than those great beasts who descend swiftly into extinction? The lion, once honoured as the symbol of the British Empire, today is considered a vulnerable species with a declining population and shrinking domain. Might we view the cockroach not as a pest, but an ideal for us humans? A repository of virtues? A shining example of unconditional existence, a state towards which every man ought to strive?

There is something deeply beautiful and inspiring about the cockroach’s plight, which it takes a rare mind to glimpse. For, as evolution teaches, the majority are liable to take the path of least resistance, falling into a specialist stupor when fortuitous circumstances arise, and then perishing swiftly when robbed of that Edenic paradise. The only way to avert such a fate is to categorically reject comfort.

And so I ask: to wake up and become a cockroach… Might this be not a grotesque metamorphosis, but rather a glorious transfiguration?