Late last night while puttering around the new apartment I switched on my stand lamp, and its soft glow illuminated someone else’s new home.

This handiwork had been accomplished sometime in the previous twenty-four hours by the newcomer sitting at its center, because I knew it wasn’t there the night before. It’s rare enough to find a complete web like this outside, but to come face-to-face with one so prominently spun indoors was truly startling. As I stood bewitched by the wicked angular beauty of this glowing silken masterpiece and its tiny creator, poised at the center surveying her new home, I was struck by similarities between this little eight-legged artist and myself.

Here this little spider was, all on its own, forging a life for itself with support from no one; a tiny homeless creature in a colossal world. It had traveled across the vast steppes of its diminutive universe, seeking the ideal place to start anew. Finding that spot, it set about spinning its new home with no guidance save for its architectural instincts. A true loner, this little spider needed no one: it did what it had to in order to survive and carry on, and did so in spectacular form.

It was such an ephemeral thing, this gossamer web…so light and, to our blundering human eyes, so fragile. An errant breath from my lungs cast the web into a chaotic tumble: from my perspective merely a passing flutter; from the spider’s view, no doubt, a violent storm that threatened to pluck it from its perch and destroy its new settlement. Yet to its spot the spider clung, whipped about but undaunted, and waited for the rough times to pass. Perhaps this spider was teaching me a lesson on the true meaning of tenacity in the face of misfortune.

Or was confidence in what it had wrought for itself this little hermit’s secret? Further study of this glittering lattice of threads revealed almost flawless structural design. Single strands in just the right places formed crossmembers of a kind, to gird the structure against stress, just as a human-built suspension bridge might. An uncanny intuition about fundamental architectural principles was on display here. No longer was it a mystery to me that this seemingly delicate spider web resisted winds which, brought to human scale, would level cities. This then was the spider’s second lesson: skill and hard work can overcome most difficulties, and if I use my talents and craft my works well enough, I can overcome whatever hurdles that may threaten to foil my efforts.

And yet I took pity on this poor spider, for I realized that its incredible craftsmanship would prove all for naught. My shuttered windows would usher in no tiny insects to ensnare themselves in this multifaceted trap. The spider could hardly know this, so limited is its scope of vision in the universe. One such as myself, with a grander view of this little creature’s world, perceived plainly the futility of its labors, but the spider would wait there obliviously, unable to see on so vast a scale. I was like God peering down upon a single man, watching him toil away at his mundane tasks. I gazed divinely upon this tiny arachnid loner, pondering its future in so precarious a position in a great big world, and somehow knew that, left to its own devices, it would survive. Perhaps, with a little luck, the lessons it taught me would help me survive alone in the great big world as well.

But it wasn’t left to its own devices. Fwoosh! went the vacuum cleaner as I trained the hose on the stand lamp, and I sucked that stupid fucker right to its doom along with its web. Hahaha! I bet it’s dead in there already. You see, that is the most powerful lesson of all to be learned from this encounter: don’t be a spider in my house, or your creepy little ass is toast.