A young, happy spider found the perfect corner in a quiet room in which to build her first home. Joyfully she spun and wove a beautiful web, artistic enough to be featured in Spiderworld’s Home and Garden. Exhausted but proud of her efforts, the young spider rested in the center of her web, waiting for lunch.
An elderly woman entered the room, and on seeing the spider, she screamed so loud even her half-deaf husband heard it. On seeing the cause of her distress, the husband quickly smashed the spider’s first home to smithereens. The spider was lucky to escape with her life.
Rattled but undaunted, the spider crawled to another house and built a second home, this time not as aesthetic as her first web, but comely enough. Before the spider’s first meal arrived by air, a maid spotted the web and destroyed it with her broom. Again the poor spider fled for her life.
The same thing happened in the next house, and the next, and the next one after that. After her sixth web was violently destroyed, the poor little spider understandably began to suffer the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. She became paranoid of corners, too anxious to spin any more webs.
As she crawled tired and hungry along the road, she became lost in negative thoughts: “No one likes me. All I want is a quiet home somewhere. I won’t harm anyone; I just want to catch flies and bugs. They don’t want the bugs anyway. Life is so unfair. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I feel so… so alone.”
Then the little spider began to cry.
Soon her thoughts turned to suicide. “Nobody loves me. What’s the point of going on? I’ll never find a home. I’ll never get food. Maybe I’ll kill myself.”
The suicidal spider deliberately crawled under the shoes of the passing pedestrians, but she always managed to find herself in the safe space between the heel and the sole. Then she crawled across the busy road but always went between the wheels, never underneath them. When you’re depressed, you can’t do anything right, not even suicide.
Suicidal spider soon gave up even trying to kill herself. Sobbing and sniffling, she staggered along the road like a drunk, not aware of where she was going. Soon, she felt someone looking at her. She stopped and turned to see a big fat happy spider smiling kindly at her.
“Why are you crying?” asked the fat happy spider.
Wiping her nose with a tissue, she told the sad story of her life. After suicidal spider finished her tale of woe, she suddenly realized that not all spiders were thin and depressed. This one was fat and looked very happy.
“How come you’re so fat and happy?” asked suicidal spider.
The fat spider smiled softly.
“Didn’t anyone destroy your webs when you built them?”
“I only ever built one web in my whole long life,” the spider replied. “I catch plenty of food every day. In fact,” continued fat happy spider, compassionately, “there is more than enough for the two of us. Come and live with me.”
“Wait a moment,” said suicidal spider. “Where on earth have you built such a web that no one has disturbed it for such a long time?”
“Oh!” replied fat happy spider, “I built my web in the donation box at Ajahn Brahm’s temple. Nothing ever disturbs me there!”
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