Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.
In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.
Ants have the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.
I never kill insects. If I see ants or spiders in the room, I pick them up and take them outside. Karma is everything.
I really knew I wanted to be Adam, because Adam was the first man. Ant I chose because, if there's a nuclear explosion, the ants will survive.
When many work together for a goal, Great things may be accomplished. It is said a lion cub was killed By a single colony of ants.
I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn't hold me back and my teachers couldn't criticize me. That's how my career as a micro-sculptor began.
If a mosquito has a soul, it is mostly evil. So I don't have too many qualms about putting a mosquito out of its misery. I'm a little more respectful of ants.
Growing up, others girls wanted to dance and help their mums with the cooking. I liked to play soccer with the boys. Or I'd be off on my own, tilting mirrors towards the sun in order to burn armies of ants. That was my idea of fun.
When I look up and see the sun shining on the patch of white clouds up in the blue, I begin to think how it would feel to be up somewhere above it winging swiftly thought the clear air, watching the earth below, and the men on it, no bigger than ants.