I just found out that the world, or at least a small piece of it, lost a great friend this afternoon. The loss is not a Nobel Laureate, a rocket scientist, nor even a great medical practitioner, but of a small, furry tan and white, turned almost completely white in later life, Jack Russell terrier named Rocky.
Almost eighteen years ago, Rocky came into the world at the foot of my bed in a small kiddie pool, the product of the union of Gus and Minnie. With Rocky came his sister, who would come to be known as Little Nell. She was a slightly darker caramel brown and white little beast with a beautiful little black face. One day one of my nearest, dearest and most trusted friends saw the two of them playing in the back yard, and being in the market for a dog, and knowing that the two, who played as one but being in separate bodies, could not be separated from one another, took them both home to be part of his family.
Now, it is an interesting thing about Jack Russel terriers, they do not really have owners and certainly do not have "masters." Jack Russels are dogs that have "staff" members, and Little Nell and Gus were no different. In fact they may have taken this concept to a logical hyperbole, for they spent their lives being doted upon. Gus and Nell became well known at some of the better restaurants in and around Winter Park, FL, for they were never to be left at home. My friend and his significant other took them everywhere. Yes, they were like children, but even more demanding.
Several years ago, Nell left us as a result of a rare canine disease that took her after a rather hard fought, and no less expensive, fight with the disease. She died having gotten the best of care and no less love than a dog has ever had and she is still missed to this day. Her brother, Rocky, remained, bewildered for a while and missing his sister, but like all if us he moved on. He remained a dog of high expectations (demanding is not exactly the right term). He expected his staff to take very good care of him. It was just his right. He never had to demand it, he just expected it and his expectations never went unmet.
Now Rocky gave at least as good as he got. He was as loyal a dog as a person could have. He was always well behaved in public and would have been impressive in white tie and tails (pardon the obvious pun) at a social evening at The Breakers on Palm Beach. But his best and most impressive moments were as "Nurse Rocky." My friend's life partner had a stroke several years ago as well as several other medical issues with her brain that affected her cognitive abilities. Rocky became her constant companion and protector. He would rouse her in the morning, walk with her during the day and bark when something was wrong, something he reserved for only the more desperate of times, but his best attribute was just to be there for her. He presented himself for petting regularly, letting her know that she was not alone and slept with the two of them each and every night. In later years, as old age crept up on Rocky, my friend built a ramp at the foot of the bed so Rocky could maintain his dignity and climb up onto the bed when he could no longer jump. It was far beneath his dignity to be lifted into the bed. When my friend was away, Rocky was his partner's constant companion. Were that something happened, I have no doubt that this little dog would somehow have dialed 911 on the telephone. While the term was, no doubt, beneath Rocky, he was a great "service dog."
As for everyone, dogs and humans alike, time marches forward, and takes it toll on us all. Rocky became in his old age an almost ghostly white color, just not quite right for him as the rich tan and clearly defined white patches of his youth. He lost his hearing and most of his sight. He would still follow my friends around the house and was always willing to go for a walk, at least partially around the block, but now the pace was slower and there was a lot more sniffing and investigating than tugging at the leash as if in a hurry to get somewhere. More often than not, the walk ended when only a half or quarter trip around the block had been completed.
In past weeks, Rocky became lethargic and his appetite failed him. The veterinarian found a mass in his abdomen and the prognosis was not good, but some shots and a change of food seemed to bring the old "Rock Star" back to us for a while, but it was a temporary fix at best. Rocky had gotten his "Mistress" through her stroke and the long recovery and he had gotten his "Master" through a heart surgery and the recovery from that. He had done his all and given his all, out of love and respect and gratitude, but he was tired and his time was soon to come.
Several days ago, Rocky could no longer bring himself to eat and he slowly began that slide to what awaits us all. As my friend said so eloquently the doctor "gave him grace this afternoon." A finer beast will never inhabit the Earth and "grace" was not really given him, but was his due. He had earned it and deserved it more than most. Rocky will be missed and will remain alive in our memories and in our hearts, but the world is just a little bit of a lesser place tonight for his loss.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Don't Waste The Hate
An ex-girlfriend of mine recently texted me and asked, “Why do you hate me?” I will give you my reply later, but I found myself thinking about the term “hate.”
I have discovered that I do not really hate anything. I think if I did hate something, I would have no choice but to kill or eliminate it from the face of the Earth, if it were within my power. Hate is an incredibly important and intense emotion, and it should not be expended lightly. Hating takes more from the person doing the hating, in an emotional sense, than the one being hated. Hating can be downright exhausting as well.
Hate is, in my opinion, something we should reserve for the most egregious of people and conduct on the planet and we must also have some sort of personal interest or association with the person or conduct to truly hate. I am not sure that there is not a man that served in WWII that does not have an absolute right and basis for hating Adolph Hitler. Certainly there are millions of Jews that have the same right and basis, as well as all sorts of other minorities in Europe at the time. While I can have intensely disapproving emotions about Nazi Germany and the conduct during the war, I was not there and was never personally affected by it, so I am not sure that I can truly reach the level of hate, and am not sure I have the right to do so.
So, back to the ex… I explained that I considered hate a far too great and important an emotion to be wasted. I went on to explain that her problem with me was not that I hated her, but that I did not care at all and one has to care, really care, to hate someone. To hate her was to engage in an active emotional process that required investment of time, thought and effort and I had neither the time, nor the inclination, to hate her, in spite of what I perceived as what she had done to me.
My ex had borrowed several thousands of dollars, which I now see that I will never get back, short of suing her, and even then, she has nothing, so suing would be an exercise in futility. When the economy went down the toilet, so did a lot of my disposable income and, as I should have known, when the money got gone, so did she. No dinner out five nights a week, no trips to the Bahamas and Key West for the weekend and no trips to New York for Thanksgiving. I learned in a very harsh way, it was not me she loved but the lifestyle that came with me.
Now you would think the above was enough, but like so many women (and men) when she decided I was not “providing for her needs” she undertook as her mission to find a replacement that she thought could. When she finally did dump me, unceremoniously during a phone call, she had already been seeing another guy for a month. Her motto appears to be, don’t give up what you got until you have the proper replacement in hand. An interesting side note; the guy dumped her a few months later, which was probably in his best interests.
I am sure there are those that would say I have reason to hate her, but I find that other than four years of wasted time, effort and money with her, it was not an event that calls for the expenditure of the emotional capital necessary to hate. I prefer just to relegate her to that file of my life for the barely notable, move on and save the hate for more worthy people and practices. As for the ex….I just don’t care enough to hate her.
I have discovered that I do not really hate anything. I think if I did hate something, I would have no choice but to kill or eliminate it from the face of the Earth, if it were within my power. Hate is an incredibly important and intense emotion, and it should not be expended lightly. Hating takes more from the person doing the hating, in an emotional sense, than the one being hated. Hating can be downright exhausting as well.
Hate is, in my opinion, something we should reserve for the most egregious of people and conduct on the planet and we must also have some sort of personal interest or association with the person or conduct to truly hate. I am not sure that there is not a man that served in WWII that does not have an absolute right and basis for hating Adolph Hitler. Certainly there are millions of Jews that have the same right and basis, as well as all sorts of other minorities in Europe at the time. While I can have intensely disapproving emotions about Nazi Germany and the conduct during the war, I was not there and was never personally affected by it, so I am not sure that I can truly reach the level of hate, and am not sure I have the right to do so.
So, back to the ex… I explained that I considered hate a far too great and important an emotion to be wasted. I went on to explain that her problem with me was not that I hated her, but that I did not care at all and one has to care, really care, to hate someone. To hate her was to engage in an active emotional process that required investment of time, thought and effort and I had neither the time, nor the inclination, to hate her, in spite of what I perceived as what she had done to me.
My ex had borrowed several thousands of dollars, which I now see that I will never get back, short of suing her, and even then, she has nothing, so suing would be an exercise in futility. When the economy went down the toilet, so did a lot of my disposable income and, as I should have known, when the money got gone, so did she. No dinner out five nights a week, no trips to the Bahamas and Key West for the weekend and no trips to New York for Thanksgiving. I learned in a very harsh way, it was not me she loved but the lifestyle that came with me.
Now you would think the above was enough, but like so many women (and men) when she decided I was not “providing for her needs” she undertook as her mission to find a replacement that she thought could. When she finally did dump me, unceremoniously during a phone call, she had already been seeing another guy for a month. Her motto appears to be, don’t give up what you got until you have the proper replacement in hand. An interesting side note; the guy dumped her a few months later, which was probably in his best interests.
I am sure there are those that would say I have reason to hate her, but I find that other than four years of wasted time, effort and money with her, it was not an event that calls for the expenditure of the emotional capital necessary to hate. I prefer just to relegate her to that file of my life for the barely notable, move on and save the hate for more worthy people and practices. As for the ex….I just don’t care enough to hate her.
People Are Strange...The Continuing Saga... No. 2...You Can Never Go Back
I recently had a long conversation (actually a series of emails) with a woman that did something I considered very strange. She got back together with a man that she had broken up with on three separate occasions. I believe my comment was, among others, that it was the triumph of hope over reality. The thing that made it so much more surreal was the fact that she had a man she had been with before pining away for her. Like all things in the interpersonal relationships of human beings, things are not simple. To make things easier, I will give them pseudonyms, because “he” can get a bit confusing.
It seems that she has been in what she thought was a committed, monogamous relationship with Don, but, for several reasons, she found out that maybe it was not as committed and monogamous as she had thought, on at least one occasion anyway. So they broke up, but got back together. The reasons for the other two break-ups are not quite as clear, and far more complicated, but suffice it say, they were serious enough for her to leave him, even though, getting back together previously was more out of habit than for any other reason, by her own admission. The most recent break up lasted a couple of months until Don came back and promised to be a good boy. She bought it and they are, no doubt, living in bliss. I shall presume this because she has refused to talk to me after I made my opinions known to her.
The thing that is strange is that she was with another guy about three years ago, Allan, before she met Don. They had what can only be described as an idyllic relationship, but it only lasted six months because Allan stopped seeing her and got back together with his old girlfriend. Allan did this, according to discussions they have had since, because he was falling in love and he was just scared to death, having flashbacks of a failed marriage and a couple of failed relationships, so he went back to a woman he was not in love with, but with whom things were tolerable. It was, by his own admission, a bad mistake.
Well, of course, the inevitable happened and Allan and his girlfriend broke up, and permanently this time. Allan had been single for over a year when his path crossed this woman’s path again while she was broken up with Don. They started talking and, after a month, she finally decided to take a chance and start seeing Allen again, but this never happened because Don showed up again.
Allen had explained that he realized that he had made a terrible mistake in dumping her and thought of it has a horrible error. He seemed to express that he also felt guilty about it as well. The long and the short of it was that Allen, having realized his error, professed a willingness to spend the rest of his life making sure that this woman would never feel she had made a mistake in getting back together with him. There are few more motivating things in the world as guilt. Ask any Jewish Mother or Grandmother. So, what do you think happened?
Of course, Don, came waltzing back to her, puppy dog eyes and all, professing his unhappiness and desire to try, yet again, and she bought it. I have not heard from her since, probably because I did everything short of calling her an idiot for getting back together with Don. I though maybe shock treatment or the email equivalent of getting slapped upside the head was called for…Oh well. I explained that Don had discovered he was lonely without her and that, for Don, being with her was better than being alone. I explained that to Don, being with anyone was better than being alone. I also pointed out that Don had always been looking for something better to come along and that she would get dumped the minute that something better (to Don) did come along. Gee…I can’t imagine why she does not does not speak to me anymore…LOL
Allan was motivated, in part by guilt, but he was also motivated by gratitude at getting a second chance, and getting a second chance at love is something for which to be very grateful. Allan probably would have spent the rest of his days making sure that he proved to her that she had not made a mistake in choosing him. I cannot help but suspect that Allan broke her heart when he left her the first time and this was her way of getting back at him for having dumped her years ago, but since I haven’t heard from her she has not denied it. Allen also accused her of the same thing, and I think he may be right. He also said that he probably won’t be there for her again when she finds herself three years older before making contact with Allan again. Life will move forward.
I just don’t understand the decisions people make in matters of love. Hell, I do not even understand the reasons I do things in matters of love. I am an enigma to myself in this regard, but isn’t everybody? It is just another reason to believe that people are strange.
It seems that she has been in what she thought was a committed, monogamous relationship with Don, but, for several reasons, she found out that maybe it was not as committed and monogamous as she had thought, on at least one occasion anyway. So they broke up, but got back together. The reasons for the other two break-ups are not quite as clear, and far more complicated, but suffice it say, they were serious enough for her to leave him, even though, getting back together previously was more out of habit than for any other reason, by her own admission. The most recent break up lasted a couple of months until Don came back and promised to be a good boy. She bought it and they are, no doubt, living in bliss. I shall presume this because she has refused to talk to me after I made my opinions known to her.
The thing that is strange is that she was with another guy about three years ago, Allan, before she met Don. They had what can only be described as an idyllic relationship, but it only lasted six months because Allan stopped seeing her and got back together with his old girlfriend. Allan did this, according to discussions they have had since, because he was falling in love and he was just scared to death, having flashbacks of a failed marriage and a couple of failed relationships, so he went back to a woman he was not in love with, but with whom things were tolerable. It was, by his own admission, a bad mistake.
Well, of course, the inevitable happened and Allan and his girlfriend broke up, and permanently this time. Allan had been single for over a year when his path crossed this woman’s path again while she was broken up with Don. They started talking and, after a month, she finally decided to take a chance and start seeing Allen again, but this never happened because Don showed up again.
Allen had explained that he realized that he had made a terrible mistake in dumping her and thought of it has a horrible error. He seemed to express that he also felt guilty about it as well. The long and the short of it was that Allen, having realized his error, professed a willingness to spend the rest of his life making sure that this woman would never feel she had made a mistake in getting back together with him. There are few more motivating things in the world as guilt. Ask any Jewish Mother or Grandmother. So, what do you think happened?
Of course, Don, came waltzing back to her, puppy dog eyes and all, professing his unhappiness and desire to try, yet again, and she bought it. I have not heard from her since, probably because I did everything short of calling her an idiot for getting back together with Don. I though maybe shock treatment or the email equivalent of getting slapped upside the head was called for…Oh well. I explained that Don had discovered he was lonely without her and that, for Don, being with her was better than being alone. I explained that to Don, being with anyone was better than being alone. I also pointed out that Don had always been looking for something better to come along and that she would get dumped the minute that something better (to Don) did come along. Gee…I can’t imagine why she does not does not speak to me anymore…LOL
Allan was motivated, in part by guilt, but he was also motivated by gratitude at getting a second chance, and getting a second chance at love is something for which to be very grateful. Allan probably would have spent the rest of his days making sure that he proved to her that she had not made a mistake in choosing him. I cannot help but suspect that Allan broke her heart when he left her the first time and this was her way of getting back at him for having dumped her years ago, but since I haven’t heard from her she has not denied it. Allen also accused her of the same thing, and I think he may be right. He also said that he probably won’t be there for her again when she finds herself three years older before making contact with Allan again. Life will move forward.
I just don’t understand the decisions people make in matters of love. Hell, I do not even understand the reasons I do things in matters of love. I am an enigma to myself in this regard, but isn’t everybody? It is just another reason to believe that people are strange.
People Are Strange....The Continuing Saga..No. 1
We all know people are strange. It is really a matter of people being different from us. We judge people and make decisions about their suitability and acceptability based on the norms of our own culture and ethnicity (ethnocentrism). An example of this sort of thinking is easy to come up with. We politely refer to certain foods as "delicacies." That translates to, I would not eat that crap if I was starving i.e. monkey brains, fish heads, bull testicles, etc.
Now, there are people that truly enjoy these foods, but we consider them strange because they are unacceptable in our society, for the most part. The truth is that they are not so much strange and the people that eat them are not strange, they are just different and from different cultures. In my humble opinion, the people that consider this behavior to be "strange" are small-minded and think that the only true way is the way they believe to be right.
Beware of the true believers as they are the most dangerous people on the planet, regardless of what they might believe in. The true believers are the terrorists that will blow themselves and everyone around them to smithereens because they believe all people should be Muslims and practice Islam. Oh, but not just Islam, but their particular variety of Islam. They have no trouble blowing up fellow Muslims of different sects as well as Christians and Jews, for the true believer is intolerant of any dissent of any kind.
Christians have their true believers, as do Jews and pretty much any religious denomination, even within the Christian religion. These true believers are no less dangerous than those that attacked on 911. They are just a bit more insidious. We have a group that assassinates doctors that perform abortions, believing that they are acting in self defense of the unborn. We have the true believers that propound that cities like Las Vegas and New Orleans, when struck by natural disaster are victims of the Lord's wrath. They refuse to assist in the recovery or rebuilding of those cities, turning their back on the people that live there. These are very un-Christian kinds of thinking and activities in my mind.
Would it not be more consistent to allow these practitioners of different religions and beliefs, and the hedonists and pagans and whatever, to just continue to engage in their practices and let God judge them when the Judgment Day comes? If the true believer truly believes that if I am a Catholic and I am going to go to Hell for being a Catholic, why not just let me practice my beliefs and ride the bus to Hell when I die, rather than kill me because I do not believe as him or her? Intolerance of another's belief system has produced the worst atrocities known to man; the Christian Crusades, The Ethnic Cleansing in the Baltic and, lest we forget, Nazi Germany. Now, we have the intolerant, true believer Muslims becoming martyrs for their cause. I do want to note that the "true believers" within Islam of whom I speak are but a miniscule minority within that religion. We can no more lump all Muslims together as we can all Blacks, all Christians, all Jews or all Germans during WWII.
I shall close with the profound, but all too often dismissed, words of Rodney King. Yes, Rodney King !! He said, "Can we all get along? Can we get along?" Forget where it came from, the circumstances of which it was spoken and the individual from whom it came. The words are no less true and profound in today's somewhat messed up world. You can find wisdom in some strange places too.
Now, there are people that truly enjoy these foods, but we consider them strange because they are unacceptable in our society, for the most part. The truth is that they are not so much strange and the people that eat them are not strange, they are just different and from different cultures. In my humble opinion, the people that consider this behavior to be "strange" are small-minded and think that the only true way is the way they believe to be right.
Beware of the true believers as they are the most dangerous people on the planet, regardless of what they might believe in. The true believers are the terrorists that will blow themselves and everyone around them to smithereens because they believe all people should be Muslims and practice Islam. Oh, but not just Islam, but their particular variety of Islam. They have no trouble blowing up fellow Muslims of different sects as well as Christians and Jews, for the true believer is intolerant of any dissent of any kind.
Christians have their true believers, as do Jews and pretty much any religious denomination, even within the Christian religion. These true believers are no less dangerous than those that attacked on 911. They are just a bit more insidious. We have a group that assassinates doctors that perform abortions, believing that they are acting in self defense of the unborn. We have the true believers that propound that cities like Las Vegas and New Orleans, when struck by natural disaster are victims of the Lord's wrath. They refuse to assist in the recovery or rebuilding of those cities, turning their back on the people that live there. These are very un-Christian kinds of thinking and activities in my mind.
Would it not be more consistent to allow these practitioners of different religions and beliefs, and the hedonists and pagans and whatever, to just continue to engage in their practices and let God judge them when the Judgment Day comes? If the true believer truly believes that if I am a Catholic and I am going to go to Hell for being a Catholic, why not just let me practice my beliefs and ride the bus to Hell when I die, rather than kill me because I do not believe as him or her? Intolerance of another's belief system has produced the worst atrocities known to man; the Christian Crusades, The Ethnic Cleansing in the Baltic and, lest we forget, Nazi Germany. Now, we have the intolerant, true believer Muslims becoming martyrs for their cause. I do want to note that the "true believers" within Islam of whom I speak are but a miniscule minority within that religion. We can no more lump all Muslims together as we can all Blacks, all Christians, all Jews or all Germans during WWII.
I shall close with the profound, but all too often dismissed, words of Rodney King. Yes, Rodney King !! He said, "Can we all get along? Can we get along?" Forget where it came from, the circumstances of which it was spoken and the individual from whom it came. The words are no less true and profound in today's somewhat messed up world. You can find wisdom in some strange places too.
Becoming the Spiritual Warrior
I believe that in order to walk through grief, fear, loneliness, despair, confusion and anger without recourse to drugs, alcohol, over-eating, over-sexing, or the endless mind-numbing distractions provided by Western culture, one must become a spiritual warrior. I further believe that the pay-off for enduring suffering, for soberly embracing the inevitable bouts of emotional pain that life brings, is wisdom and serenity in the face of calamity. But make no mistake here, the path of the warrior is treacherous and cannot be walked alone. To survive, he must have brothers and sisters-in-arms to carry him when he buckles.
When we lived and died in small tribes, this principle of mutually supporting one another through the trials of life was deeply woven into the fabric of the group mind. With the advent of towns and cities we were forced to live with the daily dilemma of being desperately alone and yet desperately needing one another. Which is why we are, by design, always seeking new tribes. With that in mind, I humbly offer a simple guideline to evaluate the efficacy of any tribe you might encounter on your path to becoming a spiritual warrior: if they ask for your money or access to your crotch, run away. If they ask for your money, smile unceasingly, never blink, and guarantee to make you a demi-god, running away will not suffice. Change your mailing address and briefly reconsider drugs, alcohol, food, sex and TV.
When we lived and died in small tribes, this principle of mutually supporting one another through the trials of life was deeply woven into the fabric of the group mind. With the advent of towns and cities we were forced to live with the daily dilemma of being desperately alone and yet desperately needing one another. Which is why we are, by design, always seeking new tribes. With that in mind, I humbly offer a simple guideline to evaluate the efficacy of any tribe you might encounter on your path to becoming a spiritual warrior: if they ask for your money or access to your crotch, run away. If they ask for your money, smile unceasingly, never blink, and guarantee to make you a demi-god, running away will not suffice. Change your mailing address and briefly reconsider drugs, alcohol, food, sex and TV.
No Pain, No Gain
I think we can all agree that the cliche, "no pain, no gain," is a fundamental truth. When we experience physical pain in the gym, we gain muscles and stamina. When we endure hardship and sacrifice in order to succeed, we gain a feeling of satisfaction and achievement, not to mention financial rewards. When we truly embrace emotional pain, we gain compassion for the suffering of others, an appreciation for the fleeting nature of things, as well as wisdom and spiritual humility. Every act of birth is an act of pain. Our very lives are sustained by the suffering and death of plants and animals, who in turn are sustained by other organisms having a very bad day.
That being said, I think we can also agree that this system sucks and needs to be seriously re-jiggered. Now I'm not saying I have a better approach than this pain/gain thing that's been in place for millions of years -- but that doesn't mean we couldn't start tossing around some ideas. For instance, why couldn't an infrastructure for life be developed around the theme, "no dream, no gain?" Sounds like heaven, right? Or is dreaming too easy? Would life quickly become complacent and cease to gain? But then, is gain really that critical? Or is gain the whole point? Is the fact that life exists at all proof that God or the universe hates complacency? It certainly explains why aboriginal people are constantly being murdered for the sake of "progress."
That being said, I think we can also agree that this system sucks and needs to be seriously re-jiggered. Now I'm not saying I have a better approach than this pain/gain thing that's been in place for millions of years -- but that doesn't mean we couldn't start tossing around some ideas. For instance, why couldn't an infrastructure for life be developed around the theme, "no dream, no gain?" Sounds like heaven, right? Or is dreaming too easy? Would life quickly become complacent and cease to gain? But then, is gain really that critical? Or is gain the whole point? Is the fact that life exists at all proof that God or the universe hates complacency? It certainly explains why aboriginal people are constantly being murdered for the sake of "progress."
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