A large moth circles indefatigably on the windowpane, attracted by the lamp on my desk. Whenever it stumbles upon one of the smaller insects that hop haphazardly from place to place and then cling to it patiently, the startled moth flutters away, returns quickly to the window, and resumes its quest. It is safely outside, though, protected from the scorching heat of the lamp by a transparent membrane. The way in, through a nearby open window, demands a detour, a plunge into the surrounding darkness, a cunning plan; of course, the way in presupposes a higher stage of evolutionary development. With a majestic gesture, amused by my idle speculations, I reward the assembled ancestors by swinging the lamp closer to the window.

Addendum (January 21, 1993)

That moth was buzzing again by the lamp. Maybe he should open the huge glass door to the balcony and shoo it out into the night… Would that be moral? He really didn’t know enough about moths to know whether it was or not. It would probably just find another light somewhere, a searchlight probably, and really get zapped. But suppose it flew from the balcony so high it got free of the lights of the city and saw the moon and began to fly straight. Would that make releasing moral? Better not to interfere. Maybe that moth had its own patterns to fulfil, and he had his, whatever they were.

From Robert M. Pirsig’s Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, New York: Bantam Books: 1991, pp. 301-302.