The Parable of the Dung Beetle

Nature has some interesting symbiotic relationships: birds that clean the ticks off elephants; or clown fish living in sea anemones. The dung beetle is a hard one to fathom, however. I imagine, when all the animals were getting together at the beginning of time to decide what roles they were going play in the world, the dung beetle was messing around at the back, not entirely paying attention. He wasn't called dung beetle at the time, of course. He was called beetle, which would have been a fine name if it hadn't been for the millions of other species, all called beetle, and all clamouring to be called the beetle, the one and only beetle, the one to make all others less worthy of the name.

So, God, or Mother Nature, or Rudyard Kipling or whoever, was stood at the front doling out roles: sheep got to be the gardener, keeping the lawns and fields of the world trimmed, lush and verdant; lion got to be predator, roaming the plains and keeping all the other animals in line; dove got to be the messenger, following the sun and announcing the summer whenever he arrived. Then, Mr Kipling got to the bottom of his barrel and pulled out one final role, which he squinted at, and read and re-read silently before looking, pointedly, at the one remaining animal, who had finished trying to bounce a scrunched up piece of paper from the wall into the bin and was now realising that the room had gone quiet and he was suddenly the centre of attention.

“Now, for you,” said God, “I have a special role. An important role. Possibly the most important role of all.”

“Oh good,” said the beetle, who had been hoping for something simple, without too much heavy lifting.

“Yes,” said God. “You see, when everybody else is doing the jobs they have assigned them, they will, in the course of their duties, produce an exceedingly large volume of excrement.”

“Right,” said the beetle, wondering whether it was too late to swap with blue whale. “And that's good is it?”

“No,” said God. “It's bad. Why, if someone doesn't do something about it, it won't be long before we're knee deep, and wading.”

“Got you,” said the beetle. He thought about it. “Had we thought about not producing the excrement?”

“Oh no,” said God. “You've got to have excrement. It's ineffable. But don't worry. I have a plan. What I want you to do is...”

“Yes?”

“Take all the excrement...”

“Yes?”

“Roll it up into a ball...”

“Yes?”

“And eat it.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the beetle. “You want me to do what now?”

“Eat shit,” said God. “Don't worry. It's very rich in nutrients.”

“I don't care if its the elixir of life itself. I'm not eating shit. Why can't you eat it?”

“Oh, I'm busy,” said God. “Very, very busy. Would if I could, you know, it's just... well, you've seen my diary.”

God hastily moved his diary, where the beetle could see, quite plainly written in large letters, 'REST'.

The beetle sighed. “Alright, I'll do it,” he said. “But don't expect me to like it.”

A number of years rolled by. The sheep really got into grazing, the lions discovered they loved lording it over everyone and, much to his surprise, the beetle discovered he really liked being a dung beetle. Not the eating shit part – that would be weird – but he liked the thought that his work meant something, he enjoyed getting out into the sunshine and he loved the satisfaction of a job well done.

The other animals had become arrogant, though. They looked at the lowly dung beetle and said “his job's not important”, “not like ours”, “our work is with things that are fun and exciting that everyone wants to do, so we must be fun and exciting as well”, “his work is with things that are dull and smelly”, “I'm glad I'm not a dung beetle”.

Eventually, the beetle got tired of all of the taunts. He enjoyed his work, but the more people told him he wasn't doing anything worthwhile, the less fun it got.

So he stopped.

It didn't take long for the other animals to notice. In fact, it took about 20 minutes. Twenty minutes for the smells to start to grow. Forty minutes for the earth to become slippy underfoot. After an hour, the animals were beginning to realise they'd made a big mistake.

Finally, God stepped in.

“Hello,” said God to the dung beetle. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I want a proper job. An important job,” said the dung beetle. “I'm bored of clearing up poo. All the other animals laugh at me.”

“I see,” said God. “Tricky. You see, this is kind of an important job. I can see how you might feel a little unhappy, though. Tell you what – how about I give you a job, a big important job, but you keep doing this one on the side as well. A bit of a hobby as it were.”

“Maybe,” said the beetle. “What is this new job? And will I get staff?”

“Dotted line reports,” said God quickly. “And the job is... you will make the sun come up.”

“Huh,” said the beetle. It certainly sounded important. If the sun didn't come up, the grass wouldn't grow, so the sheep would have nothing to graze, there would be no summer for the dove to announce, and the lions wouldn't be able to lie around, doing whatever it is they do and telling everybody who would listen how important it was they kept on doing it.

“Will I get a fancy title?”

“You can be Vice President of Temporal Regeneration,” said God. “In fact, just as long as you keep clearing up excrement on the side, you can call yourself the Great God Ra, King of the Sun for all I care.”

And so, the beetle took on his new responsibilities. Every morning by dint of great effort and organisation on his part, the sun would come up, and every night he would let it go back down again and then get on with his shit eating duties.

Of course, there was a little nagging doubt. It said 'the sun used to come up before. Maybe it would still go on without. Which is more important – being responsible for making the sun come up, or actually do something with my hands which has a purpose?'

But the world carried on. And, eventually, the doubt went away. And who knows, maybe if he stops caring about the sun, the world will be plunged into eternal darkness.

What we do know is that being King of the Sun makes him happy. And if he's happy, he will keep on doing his real job, the most important job in the world: looking after the rest of us, and silently, patiently, clearing up all of the shit we leave behind.