Ants

     I apologize in advance if the following extended analogy ends up sounding completely Disaster Movie retarded. I won't judge you. There are millions of people out there who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old and I've heard that some of them can even poop in the big boy potty so there's no reason to feel dumb. But I digress.
     Imagine a town. Doesn't matter how big, or how rich, or any of that. We'll call this town "Wherever" because the details are irrelevant and I know how busy you must be.  Reading a book and such.
     So on one particularly sunny day in Wherever, our good friend Mr. Whoever has just received a big ol' promotion. He can now call himself Vice President of Whatever at the Wherever branch of Who Gives A Shit Incorporated. Hooray! He wants to celebrate the news -- and who wouldn't with a job title like that -- by purchasing a few choice gifts for his loving family.
     Mrs. Whoever is a woman of simple tastes, so he buys her jewelry or some shit. She's irrelevant to this analogy.
     Cindy Whoever, his 11 year old daughter, has been asking for months if she can have pet mice. She's been pretty good lately and could certainly learn some responsibility by taking care of small pets, so Mr. Whoever gets her two cute little mice.
     Billy Whoever,  Mr. Whoever's 8 year old son,  is incredibly gifted for his age. He has a great interest in insects and seems to be steadily heading towards a promising future in entomology. To support that interest, Billy is going to get his very own ant farm.
     This concludes the simple and easy to follow portion of my analogy. Please remain seated during takeoff.
      You are now an ant. One of the first to hatch in Billy's ant farm, actually. You and all your ant buddies get some sweet-ass tunnels dug out, you find food and water, blah blah blah. All things told, life is awesome.
     Let's zoom out a little. Your entire world, this ant farm, is just some dirt in a clear plastic box in some little kid's bedroom. Whether you know it or not, you will live or die by the actions of a child. You can see through the plastic into the bedroom but even if your tiny ant brain could comprehend a room outside your world -- sorry, "ant farm" -- there's no way you could fathom the idea that in the room next door, two mice are in a cage doing mouse stuff with no idea ants even exist.
     No, as far as you're concerned, the entire universe consists of your ant farm, Billy the Waterbringer, and the vast and impossible realm known as Billy's bedroom.
     To speed this lecture up a bit, let's now suppose that you and all your fellow ants are sentient and capable of logic. You know there's some giant, unbelievable creature who looks nothing like you. He lives outside of your world but he watches you from time to time. He leaves no pheromone markings to communicate with your people, so you have no idea what his motivations are, but he brings food and water every day.
     Billy gave you life and continues to keep you alive. All hail Billy!
     In Billy's world, though, he's just a kid. Sure he's bright and lovable, but he ultimately doesn't know shit. He does what his parents tell him because they're grownups. They cook dinner and buy him ant farms. All hail grownups.
     Billy's parents aren't exactly gods themselves, though. Mr. Whoever got his life-changing (and ant-bringing) promotion because after years of dedicated work, his boss finally acknowledged him. All hail bosses.
     On and on it goes. But you're an ant. You and the other ants will go on pondering about Billy and Billy's bedroom and make all these theories about how amazing the universe is but you couldn't possibly conceive it. There are millions of kids like Billy and millions of bedrooms just like his.
     By now you can probably tell where I'm headed with this. Fuck you, I'm gonna sum it up anyway. The terrible truth is that we, as humans, are ants, looking outside of our world into Billy's bedroom and wondering why he doesn't speak to us in Ant-ese and give us all the answers.
      I mean, we're lucky to have him around to feed us. There are ants out in the real world that don't have a Billy to tend to their needs. They have to forage for everything and get stepped on or eaten by birds.
     But at least they won't starve to death when Billy goes to summer camp and forgets about us.