Worms are worms. But are they? Of course, they are. They're worms. What a foolish question. It's quite easy to identify a worm simply by looking at it. Careful observation of any of its prominent extremities can lead to the diagnosis that you are, in fact, looking at a worm. The worm anatomy consists of a head, body, tail, or tail, body, head. Though its direction and orientation may not be fully apparent, if found near the soil, on the sidewalk just after the rain, or in a bait shop in a styrofoam container marked "Worms," you can safely assume that the creature in question is indeed a worm. There are, however, specific physical characteristics that would denote an entirely different creature. I.e., the addition of fangs = a snake, multiple legs being a caterpillar, hundreds of legs; a centipede, a shell ~ a legless tortus, four legs is, of course, a hairless cat, and if the tail wags, it's a shaved dog. The multitude of these variants is as plentiful as drops of water in the ocean and should constantly be subject to review when attempting to identify a worm.

Until recently, worms were a fringe interest. Mainly involved with certain subset fandoms, namely birds, fish, and fishermen. You may even choose to include that one weird kid on the playground, though a committee of one is more of an outlier than a special interest group. Though, as a society, we have yet to join these groups for their culinary interest in worms, ours has become philosophical. The heart of which is usually asked towards a loved one, in a sentiment of doe-eyed and eager anticipation, "Would you still love me if I was a worm?". What a quandary you would be in if faced with this question. Any partner with an ounce of wisdom knows the right answer. But the correct answer and the logical answer can sometimes be at odds. That's why our world is in its current state today. But so it is, and there you are, looking deeply into your lover's hopeful and dreamy eyes, and you must decide: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy? Before we answer, let's place ourselves in our partner's shoes and look inward with a couple more questions while we're at it. If we suppose we are suspending reality and disbelief that our partner may or may not pledge their undying love for us in our new wriggly state, we should also ask ourselves, "Could I love myself if I was a worm?" and "Do I love my partner enough to let them let me go now that we are no longer the same?"

As a society, we tend to think of love in an outward sense. Love for another, love thy neighbor, the Western romantic ideal of love, love at first sight, love is blind, for the love of God, let alone the verb of love itself. There are a lot of avenues of confusion to get lost in when it comes to love. Moving past that, what about the love of ourselves in a pre-worm state? I seriously doubt that we as a species have mastered that art. Many of us would have a tough time giving a precise explanation of the ideal of true self-love, void of hubris and ego, let alone putting it into a well-executed and consistent daily practice. We'd probably have to google it, which would be our first mistake because we are immediately going outside ourselves to seek an answer that begins and ends from within. Now, if this sounds like a lot of work, then you are correct. It is. It's not objectively very fun either; more so rewarding, if anything. The same way that successfully folding a fitted sheet is. There is no trophy, no cookie, and no confetti cannon—just work. Everyone has, in one way or another, some type of decomposing body buried deep down within themselves, and the longer it's been down there, the worse it's going to smell when you finally dig it up. If you happen to be the type of person thinking to yourself, "Not me"... especially you. But at the end of the day, it's all part of the same type of work. A humanistic laundry: doing character sheets, emotional pillowcases, separating spiritual lights and darks, and reuniting long-lost pairs of thought-patterned socks. Whether you choose to figure out what it means to love yourself or not, everyone will eventually be hung out to dry in some fashion. In our case, right now, it's becoming a worm. The question you need to ask yourself is who is doing the hanging and who is getting hung. If you are both, you might want to give yourself some agency in your own story, lest we forget the conundrum of the lone desperado.

But alas, lo and behold, and by the grace of God, you are now a worm. Congratulations. Achievement Unlocked. Now, what do you do? What were you doing? What are you thinking at the moment? Hopefully, your metamorphosis didn't happen while touring an aviary. Would you be able to come to grips with your new identity? What if you were still struggling with your own identity as a human before your unique and holy transformation? Life, after all, is change, and depending on your faith, I'd see no reason that God would send anything your way that you couldn't handle. For the devout and pious, would you believe God a fit judge to sentence the vain into a dirt-filled afterlife, to strip you of your pride and illusions, lay waste to any pompous self-righteous indignations, and humble you in your new life of wormdom? Or is the opposite true, and we are dealing with a case of divine intervention? Have you and you alone been chosen, by he that is most high, to journey forth towards a new evolution for humanity? A spiritual and physical ascension to rid ourselves of earthly attachment and simply make us one with the Earth? Maktub, and so shall it be written in accordance by the King of Kings. Everything is just as likely as everything else. Without doing any of the work, your literal existence as a worm would be a more real "you" than any current thoughts, perceptions, and ideas of who you think you are as a human—just a little thought worm to keep you company late at night.

If, however, you could not let go of your insecurities and attachments, the day-to-day minutiae of your new life as a worm would make things like gossip, sex, and pickleball a lot more difficult for you and your significant other. Many questions begin to arise the more we look at the problem. Does your partner know how to build a terrarium? Do you even want to be in a terrarium, or would you still prefer to sleep in the same bed? Could you deal with the looks from their friends the next time they bring you to a work function or engagement party? Let's say your partner is the worm, and now you must endure the side-eye looks from friends and colleagues. At what point do you start to question your love for your partner after explaining the situation for what feels like the hundredth time to strangers and friends? Are you able to recognize the codependent pressure you exert on each other to stay together because becoming single also means you also become the person who dumped your partner after they became a worm? Isn't everyone just trying to live their own lives, but now you have to justify your choice to become single to the same people you originally had to defend your previous human-worm relationship to? And even if you are trying to make it work for the sake of the children, I seriously doubt that a Michelin Star restaurant would have the time, patience, and understanding to listen to your pleas that it's your anniversary and you don't mind whether they have a table, booth, patio, or bar seating, just as long as the two of you are together. Eventually, the whole charade becomes exhausting as you start to realize that both of you are moving in different directions. One moves forward with their life, trying to regain their autonomy and independence while attempting to make sense of how their relationship and individual identity got so turned around, while the other moves downward toward the soil, looking for nutrients. Truth be told, this situation would strain any relationship.

This question of "Would you still love me if I was a worm?" always seems to be thrust upon us like an obligatory "Honey-do" list of existential insecurities and absolutes. Unfortunately, this "love" we are seeking is no true love at all. Love in the form of worms creates an inverse imbalance between partners. It begins with you (a worm), placing an insanely inhuman amount of expectations and pressure on your partner (a human) to be the perfect specimen and everything you need them to be in every changing moment. Secondly, where the former requires your partner to be and change into everything they are not (i.e., a significant other who now has to love a worm), the latter exists by inversing the expectations, forcing them to love everything you are not, without first taking the glaring responsibility that you are in fact, a worm. This is all hypothetical, of course, and if reading this makes you anxious, just know that your relationship is absolutely perfect, with no need for any inner work or growth at all.

Hypotheticals aside, anyone in love knows the correct answer. In the context of a relationship, the right and logical answers are the same. Yes, of course I would run a marathon with you, visit your mother, go hiking, go to trivia with your friends, jump into the ocean and fight a shark if it was attacking you, never remarry after your death, remain celibate through your triple life sentence (reincarnations included), and love you if you were a worm. It is a lie of love. Pathos subverts logos to soothe an insecure ego. The wise answer sounds something along the lines of, "My sweet, sweet baby, honey bunny, pickle dumpling, my stars and moon, my beau, boo, bae, boopy doopy, my little shmoopsie pooopsie bear, sugar plum, snuggle muffin, pretzel nugget... Of course, I would love you if you were a worm. There is not a moment's hesitation nor doubt in my heart that could quell my feelings for you. Not the heavens, angels, or demons, man nor beast could keep me from loving you. I would go to the ends of the Earth to either bring you back or turn myself into a worm just to be with you". The sage lovers and silver-tongued devils always seem to know what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.

Worms are not just worms. It'd be foolish to think otherwise. Worms are quite lucky after all. We don't think of them as such, but they are. I ask you to name a creature whose head is indiscernible from its tale, and if you chop it in half, both ends will grow back now, creating two worms from one. If we were as lucky, John Wayne Bobbitt would have gone on to be the most successful porn star in history.

Regarding ourselves, worms, and luck, think of it like this: If someone asks you, "Would you still love me if I was a worm?", it poses a unique set of proofs. First, it seems that you and a random human are both human. That's a good start in the cosmic lottery. Second, still loving someone implies that you are currently in love with them. That alone shows how fortunate you are in the utter vast meaninglessness of the universe to have found love that is currently alive and human. And third, this human is silly enough to take the concept of turning into a worm and place its positive, loving congruence of the vast meaninglessness of the universe, and ascribe its vast importance to you. If you find yourself staring down the barrel of this question, know you are truly lucky and take a moment to recognize that fact.

In addition to luck, our language around worms even holds a strange sort of mystic and kinetic energy. A few examples we have in our everyday life: Can of worms (a wriggling pandora's box of sorts. Bad for the fish, good for the fisherman), the early bird gets the worm (the first to arrive at a given endeavor, maximizing the chance for success), worm your way in [to someone's heart, hopefully not your dogs though. (heartworms too: sometimes people, things, an ideal, or worms find their way into our hearts for better or for worse)], and worm your way out (of a sticky situation, perhaps a fish with a lucky worm). There are bookworms (for our eyes) and earworms (for our ears), even thought worms (for our brains). Each of these three metaphorical worms happens right in our heads, giving us all sorts of ideas and creativity. We never know when that hook of inspiration will strike us next.


Pinning down and dissecting one of those relationships above, we can see that birds and worms have an interesting relationship. "The Early Bird Gets the Worm". We know this, but let's expand. It's a sentiment of luck, endowing an ambitious random cohort of early risers with chance and good fortune. Others create their own luck by finding the crossroads where opportunity and execution meet and, from there, set up their lemonade stand. Even now, I'm sure you can picture an old mentor, coach, or role model encouraging you to chase your dreams with vigor, seize the day, carpe diem, memento more, mulgere hircum, palma non sine pulvere, etc etc etc, so on and so forth. Yes, yes, yes, that's good and all, but what do their relationships say about each other? The bird and the worm both represent freedom. The bird hatches from the egg, breaking through the shell barrier and going forth to the sun every spring. All of these symbolize life and freedom, to take flight from the nest and soar through the sky, a leap of faith into one's new self. The worm, most classically, is a symbol of death and decay but also renewal. Even death is freedom from life and suffering, both an illusion that they are somehow separate. After all, the early bird may eat the worm, but once it dies, the worm eats the bird. Ultimately, we all become "worm food" as those eye, ear, and brain worms become oh so real, helping us decompose and return to the Earth to complete and repeat the cycle once more, to dust we shall return. So when our time comes for us to cross over, could worms be our cosmic ferrymen in organic lifeform, here to take us over the proverbial River Styx? Could be. Everything is just as likely as everything else. And if all in this life, the world, the universe, and the vast meaninglessness of it all is just a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in whatever unlikely thing you'd place your meaning upon, then the primary image of the cycle is the snake eating its tale, or in our case, the bird and the worm eating each other. A mystic and sacred circle. All of this, without a doubt, creates some interesting food for thought for you, proving that you and the weird kid from the playground may have more in common than you thought. But as you are chewing, know that worms are your everyday miracle that you exist and are still alive. Lucky to be at that.