Mental RollerCoaster over Moths

So someone just recently told me that all the little red shiny pupae that I find and save in my garden while I'm digging around are Cutworms, well cutworm pupae.
When I was given a name and told they were devastating and a pest and plague I was stricken. I'd saved at least twenty of these things, very cautiously and graciously - only to find that they are evil.
So I was hurt for the day, really, like I was harboring satan in my garden.
And as I thought had been the case, all the little green and brown caterpillars I had also been saving were the larval form of the red shiny pupae. I was under no illusions that the caterpillars I had were "good" to have around. I mean, yeah, they gotta eat, and their going to like to eat my garden. I figured, there's enough to go around, go ahead. You'll be butterflies and enhance beauty in the world.
Then I found out that they don't just like to eat plants daintily and around the edges, saving some for others or for later, or to allow the plant to live, no, they like to chop it at the base or eat all the new growth to the ground.
This explains much death in my garden.

But I also found out that we are nearing the end of the larval season (caterpillar) and many more will be pupae soon (the little red shiny things) which don't do much but wiggle in the ground, meaning they will be nothing but brown moths soon. So nothing to sweat over, at least for the rest of this season.
Of course all the moths will then be propagating and laying eggs in my garden for next year....

Shit, well WTF, I survived. The garden is surviving. Maybe casualties, but not a plague. Maybe they are "evil" in some eyes, and I understand that completely. But it is life, and if nothing else, having a garden is bringing me closer to this intimate understanding that I have always naturally had, that life is life, and it all has a place. I can't cut my lawn or prune my plants or kill hardly anything because it's just doing what its supposed to.

Moral of the story: I got caught up in the "evil" labels that people were putting out there without taken my own experience into consideration. I can live with evil. I may not save it the with such grace anymore, but I can live with it.

PS - this whole issue becomes hazy when you start taking into consideration non-native species, or species that truly are extremely destructive like japanese pine beetles and star thistle and zebra mussles. But then again... thats just what I've been told.

oh and dandelions, no room in my garden for those pushy bastards.