Anti-fragile Lessons From a Fragile Butterfly

The gifts of challenge and change

Photo by Kathy Servian on Unsplash

An average butterfly enjoys a mere 21 nights and days alive. It spends them drinking nectar, mating, and flitting around flowers.

That’s longer than a mosquito and a bit shorter than a fly. But nothing like the multi-year lifespan of a cicada, tarantula, or queen termite.

In other words, most butterflies are fleeting beauties.

Not all butterflies are the same

But enter the celebrity butterfly, the monarch.

Last weekend, I watched some in a beautiful garden and saw many parallels with a writer’s life.
But before we get to that, let’s reacquaint ourselves with their remarkable story.

The monarch or wanderer butterflies (Danaus plexippus) outlive other butterflies ten times over. Some live for over a year.

And their superpowers don’t stop there.

They also:

• taste with every part of their body

• consume a mono-diet of the milkweed plant. It’s toxic if ingested (contains cardiac glycoside toxin) and scares predators away

• show off their poisonous nature with a distinct orange and black wing pattern

• overwinter 2500 miles away, flying from southern Canada to Mexico. (South Australi’s immigrant monarch butterflies enjoy a milder climate. They stay closer to home).

The badass butterfly

The monarch is not fleeting and fragile, despite appearances. It’s determined, resilient, long-lived, and “street-smart” in its adaptations.

Think about it.

A lot happens before it arrives as a butterfly. It’s already metamorphosed into three completely different identities: egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis.

That transformation includes:

• hatching from an egg

• becoming a full caterpillar (eating 200 times its body weight in milkweed leaves)

• molting its skin several times as it grows

• finding a suitable leaf to hang from a thread

• shedding its caterpillar skin to expose the chrysalis underneath

• self-dissolving its caterpillar body through enzyme activity

• recreating a new butterfly body with wings, legs, an antenna, and a feeding proboscis

• adding distinctive wing coloring to deter predators

• emerging from the chrysalis, then hanging to dry and pumping fluid to firm up its wings

• expanding its wings and preparing for flight.

Monarchs endure 3-5 weeks of constant change and adaptation. They face a gruelling internship to become a butterfly.

But, when it turns bitter cold in winter, they’ll survive a 2500 mile flight to land in sunny Mexico.

Lessons for us writers

And this matters to us because…

As aspiring writers and creators, some of us will see ourselves as sensitive souls.

Awake to subtle sensory stimuli.

Aware of predators.

Open to exploration, and yes, long-distance travel!

But, like the monarch, we are not fragile.

• We’re not immune to challenges. Self-doubt, overwhelm, writer’s block, procrastination, time management, and shiny object syndrome.

• We’re open to changing tactics for the sake of growth. A new platform, email delivery, platform, or niche.

• We’re prepared to become a changed person in the process. Creative, committed, connected, contributing, and curious.

Let’s remember this anti-fragile power we have as creators when we face our next brick wall.

Till next time, onward , inward, upward.

With love,

Jeanette