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“Like a moth to a flame,” we all are attracted to something. Whatever that something is, it just seems to pull at us, attracting us with seemingly no sound reason, but we find ourselves dancing around and coming back to it every single time, much like a moth dances around and eventually into a flame, as the saying suggests.
This saying, playing off the unfortunate demise of many winged nocturnal creatures, has attempted to be a wake-up call for many people who are attracted to potentially harmful things, or a cool catchphrase for a villain when they believe they’ve finally built a successful trap for the hero and are luring them in, right before their plan is foiled. Either way, it may not be the go-to phrase anymore for comparison of attraction.
I recently read an article published by Florida International University (here) that explored why bugs at night do their spectacular dance and dive bomb into flames and unnatural sources of light alike. Many have pondered the question, hypothesizing their attraction with possibilities of the light confusing them, mimicking the moon that they believe they are to follow, and many more ideas. However, no theory seemed to actually make sense until FIU looked a little deeper into the question.
Using high-speed cameras, they were able to slow down the footage of bugs dancing around a light, hoping to gain some more insight. What they found is that the bugs actually rarely, if ever, fly into the light; they fly away from it. More specifically, they make an attempt to always have the light shining on their backside (topside? wingside? I haven’t brushed up on bug anatomy recently – forgive me). Comparing this to the normal flight of nocturnal insects, the new working theory is that the bugs do believe the light to be similar to the moon or sky, but instead of being attracted to it, they use the light as a navigation system.
With the light of the sky, they’re able to orient that the ground is the opposite of the light. They then conclude that, to fly in a direction, they must position themselves between the light and the ground. However, when additional, brighter lights are added into the equation, they attempt to keep the light to their backside and end up flying in circles around the light, trying to orient themselves, and often getting dizzy or confused and bumping into the light by accident.
So, while the saying “like a moth to a flame” may not work anymore to warn someone of their harmful attraction, I motion that we begin a new phrase: “like a moth from a flame.” I know, it doesn’t quite have the same feel (I’m open to workshopping it), but it teaches an equally important lesson as the old phrase: to be cautious of what we use to orient ourselves.
Much like the moths, we’re provided with sources (light) to navigate the complexities of life (dark). We aren’t often attracted to something without purpose; we tend to have something that guides us toward our actions and thoughts. Many sources exist for us to choose from, with almost all of them claiming to be an objective truth or moral absolute (or, in some cases, the lack of either objective truth or moral absolute as the objective truth and moral absolute), but it’s important to distinguish the sound claims from the bogus ones. The way in which we orient ourselves to navigate the world has effects down to our everyday actions and up to our moral beliefs of right and wrong. Being fooled by a pleasing source because it tricks our physical or mental senses is an easy trap to fall victim to, but it’s important to stay vigilant.
Unlike our fuzzy friends, the moths, we have the capacity for metacognition, to examine ourselves from an external perspective and analyze the decisions we make and the basis from which we make them. I’m not here to plug any source in particular, despite having my own source that I hold to orient myself. However, I do encourage continuous metacognition and analysis of the source(s) we use for orientation (myself included – obviously), since it’s so easy to be misled, even when we’re on the right track. All it takes is a light that’s just a little bit brighter, and our entire navigation system can be thrown off.
“Where there is no guidance the people fall, But in abundance of counselors there is victory.” Proverbs 11:14 (NASB)
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