How Do They Do It?

Becoming a butterfly must be a very confusing process to go through:  one day you're a caterpillar with umpteen legs, happily chewing your way through all the vegetable matter you can find, and then you're compelled to form this cocoon, and finally you emerge to find you've only got four legs, but now you've got these wings.  How do they work?  What are they for?  How the heck do the newly emerged butterflies figure it all out?

As I said, our fifth guy flew off, but his flight was a bit wobbly at first.  He flew around the yard for a while but didn't seem to figure out what the plants were for.  Then he flew across the street and landed in the gutter.

He flew back across the street into our yard, narrowly missing a neighbor walking along the sidewalk.

Still figuring it out, I guess.  But at least he flew.