Casual Death

This afternoon as I was stacking wood in our dismally small woodshed, a huge (well, abnormally large anyway) daddy long legs spider crawled out of a gap and began making its way across the shed. And of course I did what seven eighths of Earths people would have done - I tried to kill it. But I missed, didn't I. So the wee blighter ambled through another crack and was gone. Ten minutes later it came back. I thought okay, this time. No such luck. It was gone, and my self-esteem was starting to get a little dinted. Twenty minutes passed and it came back again. Well, I got it that time. Maimed with the first blow, obliterated with the next. And I went back to work. I didn't pause, not till later, to ask myself why exactly I had killed it. It was just one of things that you do. Did I have any reason for exterminating it? Not really - it wasn't dangerous, harmful or even bothersome. Just a bit ugly. For that unchosen trait it died. Was I justified? I consider myself (and all others of my race) a lord of the earth; but as such I have certain duties and responsibilities. Should frivolity ever accompany the taking of life? Well, but it was just a spider I hear you say. Yes it was - but does that make it fundamentally different from any other animal? And how so? People would certainly raise a hue and cry if I bashed a cat, for instance, to death with a piece of four-by-two or an axe. It wouldn't really matter how quickly I managed it, and I didn't manage to kill the poor old spider quickly at all. It's cruel, it's cruel they'd exclaim, then Pass me the fly swatter. Double-standard, anyone? I'm not suggesting, obviously, that one is guilty of murder when killing an animal of any description. However, perhaps we should be a little more circumspect when dealing out death. It would be a good habit, for one thing, and one more step towards bringing our actions in line with our reason.