Bring out the animal in you

A while ago, I read a question on Yahoo Answers (I know, I know...) that said: "How to become an animal in your next life?"

If karma and reincarnation really exist, then my answer would be: "Make sure you are the best possible human in this life... and maybe, if you're lucky, you get to be upgraded into an animal the next time around."

But in truth... Would you really like being an animal - any animal - in a world dominated by man?
I wouldn't.

For all the shiny "progress" mankind has made through the centuries - for all the real, intellectual and spiritual, progress it has made, that too - humankind still lives with one foot, with one eye, in the stone age. And animals, these noble creatures of God, are the daily martyrs of man's inability to understand any other creature's language but his own (just barely!). They are the scapegoats of mindless brute force that fails - or even refuses - to recognise it own ignorance, or any principle superior to itself.

Personally I dislike attributing "functions" to anyone - and that includes preeminently animals. They need no "functional" justification to abide in this world, hijacked by mankind.
But that doesn't mean we have nothing to learn from them. Far from it. Often, it is them, animals, who remind us that there is real beauty, real nobility, true kindness in the world, if we care to look around, beyond our man-made limits.

There are many, many, many heartwarming animal stories on the web, in books, all around us, if we deign to pay attention to them. The following one happened very recently. You are unlikely to have read about it, and I really think you should.

The star of this story is an old boxer called Tyson - and by boxer I mean a dog.

Tyson and his human family have a neighbour who recently bought a sophisticated security system, with lights and four cameras.

A few days after having installed the system, this neighbour went out to mow the lawn - and he found a sick possum lying in the middle of his backyard.

Possums, sick or not, must be a rare sight on that lawn, because the man decided to review the security tapes of the previous night, to figure out how the animal ended up there.

It turned out the possum had been brought by the neighbour's dog - Tyson, the old boxer - who apparently had found the animal. He is seen on the security tapes carrying the possum around the neighbour's back yard for more than 30 minutes: carefully he lays the animal down, sits down himself and waits for a while; then he gingerly picks the possum again and carries it onto another spot, sits down again - and then repeats the procedure, placing the possum in a different spot.
By doing so, Tyson triggered all the security lights, one after another, until the yard was well lit; then he placed the possum in the middle of the lawn - and left.

And that's not all: according to Tyson's human - you know, the one whom Tyson believes he owns ;) - the old boxer normally consider possums to be his "mortal enemies".

Tyson, the not-so-mean boxer, in 2008.

When I was told this story, a thought crossed my mind: had Tyson perhaps injured the possum himself?
I don't know, I am not familiar with the sort of injury the possum sustained.
I don't even know whether it was an injury; maybe the possum was just sick.
But I do know that, even IF (big "if") that were the case, the dog went out of his way - displaying remarkable intelligence and "strategic" thinking - to ensure the possum got noticed.
And that it did: after the neighbour found the animal, he called the local wildlife protection services. They collected the possum, and it is my understanding the animal is now being rehabilitated.

I am sure there will be people who will object that we don't know what Tyson's "real intentions", if any, were. And in principle that is very true.

Then again, people in general know very little about the roots of their own "intentions" and those of their fellow humans - the problem is, they think they do.
Ignorance is the yardstick, the imperial measure, of man's world.

Just like a pipe sometimes really is just a pipe, an act of kindness really can be just that: an act of kindness.

And if we can't accept the notion of an animal being kind, being humane (!), without any discernible darwinian self-interest driving its behaviour, that speaks volumes - about US.

Bring out the "animal" in you. Not when you're angry, not only when you're lusty, but when you're sad and despondent and lost. Forget what you think you know - and watch the world become alive with wonder and light.

Catharsis reviewed

There are films that one should never see twice.

I just saw – against my better judgment – Umberto D.
for the second time in my life.

I shouldn't have done it. And I knew it.

But – ah! – so irresistible was the temptation to touch, if only from afar, from another lifetime, the warm glow of that Sunday afternoon, on a November day almost fifteen years ago, when I first experienced Umberto D., one of Vittorio De Sica's masterpieces, a key work of Italian neorealism.

On that afternoon, I cried so much that my nose and my entire face swelled... but there was such sweet delight in the utter heartbreak.
Do you know the feeling?

My father had just come to my home to resolve what seemed to me – a PC rookie in those days – a major catastrophe. When he left, with a smile on his face (he was happy that I would be able to continue my work – and that HE had been useful), I was just sitting down on the couch, to see Umberto D, the film that was playing on TV that November afternoon which I could see and feel bathed in a soft, amber light.

I was happy and relieved that my PC was alright – after the nerve-wrecking overnight battle with it. And somewhere, in that die-hard nook of my heart, I was also happy to have a daddy who loves me and comes to my rescue when I need him, and will now be returning home, to my lovely mum... and all that on November 1st, when so many others reminisce about happiness (or miseries) past.

As my father left, I plunged into Umberto's Rome, and I cried my eyes out. I think I even missed the final part because my eyes were too swollen to see. And – oh, how I enjoyed it! How bitter-sweet that feeling was!

That was my memory of Umberto D. That is why it held such a special place in my heart. Because of that Sunday afternoon, of amber glow, a November long ago.

I knew I shouldn't have seen it again.
But I just couldn't resist it. I am too weak to resist the call of melancholy and happiness long since vanished.

I saw the film tonight. Reluctantly – but I did see it.
I even enjoyed some of the parts. For the most part, I was appalled at my own faulty memory: there were many, many scenes and characters I didn't remember at all (like the little pregnant servant girl!).

But it was the end – once again – that broke my heart.
Only, this time it wasn't because of Umberto's and the dog's fate.

I was crying for the girl that was able to weep with such utter abandon, with such an open heart, while drawing her bitter-sweet feeling from the comforting shadows of those around me, all those who loved me. Then I wept because I could afford it; because I could indulge in it. Because I was so blessed.

Tonight's tears – very few and easily contained – came out of regret: dry, well-worn regret that I've learned to bear as a second skin, in the past ten years or so.

I knew I wasn't that girl; I knew my life wasn't like it was on that November day.
Why did I watch it?

A single memory – even if distorted (most memories are) – is worth a thousand viewings of the best films. Umberto D - the virgin viewing - had been an untouchable moment in my life.
Why did I need to re-touch it?

To prove to myself that somewhere, in that mysterious realm between everyday life and our nightly fantasies, there still persists a flicker of the Life as it once was?

I will try to erase the second viewing from my memory.
I know I can do it.
Such things come to me quite easily, these days.




Originally published here.
Reproduced by permission.