Companionship and Commitment: Human-Animal Bond

I am constantly amazed at how people function. We are a total mess of emotions, confusion, and yet, there is always a desire to attain perfection. When perfection is the ideal, you are left constantly unhappy, striving to please, aiming higher, and eventually at a loss. The loss is grand. It is the loss of the self. The loss of the simple things in life. The appreciation of all that you are today. All around me are unsatisfied and unhappy people. And it is not their fault. It is this society, this culture that demands, that expects, that tells you you are falling short, that it’ll never be enough, and worse, that you’ll never be as great as you’re supposed to be. Who gets to say what is perfect, what is great, what is deemed better than others? Why the constant comparison? Self-worth is derived from others, and yet they will always fail you. Why do we keep doing it, then? A bad habit. A dangerous addiction to perfection becomes a disease that eats away at you, until you no longer know how to function otherwise. Until the simple things scare you. Until quietness and stillness is uncomfortable. Until simple faith and trust is difficult to attain. It becomes difficult to believe in others, and in yourself. Where do we go from here?

Flake knows. Flake, my 14 year old Labrador knows better. She’s my best friend, and not just because she’s non-human. Quite frankly, because she’s not “human” she seems to have an advantage. She sees through people. Flake has been my companion for the past eight or nine years. This companionship has taught me a lot about trust, about friendship, and commitment. I am tempted to mention Donna Haraway’s “The Companion Species Manifesto” but this is meant to be a personal, rather than an academic post. (For more information see Haraway’s work on animal-human interaction).

When Flake first arrived, I was hesitant. I did not like animals, simply because I did not understand them. She was a terrified, traumatized creature, who would shake every time I touched her paw. She rejected human interaction, and would eye me carefully. Flake was paranoid, and rightly so. She had been abused in the past. People were cruel, and it seemed I could not change her perception. One day, after a long day at university, I came back home and sat next to her. She moved away. And, despite all logic, I knew I would simply have to speak to her in human language. I told her something along the lines of: “Listen, you and I, we have to be friends. You’re here to stay, and I don’t want to send you away to another family. You’ve had your share of disappointments. I’m not too happy about this commitment, but let’s just try.” And we did try. We ended up spending time with each other, and she ended up taking care of me. I ended up learning about commitment, about going home at a certain time to give her medication (she has arthritis), and waking up early for her walks in the morning. I learned that when someone (human or animal) puts their faith in you, you don’t let them down. You rise up to the challenge, if you are afraid of commitment or responsibilities. You get rewarded immensely: there is so much beauty in giving, in being there for another being, someone other than yourself.

Struggling with Multiple Sclerosis, shuffling feet out of bed, getting dressed with difficulty, working through it all, is no easy task. Add to it having another creature that demands and needs your care. I learned the art of balance. I learned how to communicate without words. When I am in pain, Flake will place her paw on my shoulder and stare at me questioningly. When I cannot get out of bed as early as she would like, Flake pretends to be asleep. She waits. She waits until I can. There is an unspoken agreement. Animal lovers will understand this, while people who don’t have pets will be skeptical. This is a companionship that rejects perfection. We are both struggling. She is growing older, is less capable of jumping around, and I am making peace with my own lack. But I have never felt judged or incompetent, except by humans. The cruelty is strange- human beings are strange. Mark Twain says: “‘Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.” And we inflict pain on each other by so many different ways. We ridicule, we mock, we expect perfection, we demand more of each other, and we let go when the pressure is too much.

Below are a few pictures of Flake, because I can’t help it.

And that’s all for now.

  

Thoughts on Character and Damage

This is yet another one of my favorite novels. Here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10746542-the-sense-of-an-ending.

The Sense of an Ending. Even the title captivates. As usual, this is not a book review, but a brief commentary on how the book affects me. Yes, it’s always about the reader. Reader-response theory all the way, baby.

The writer ponders life – a major theme, but he also considers the similarities between life and literature. Of course, literature mimics life, and also distorts it. But I am concerned with our lives. Are they actually better than/worse than fiction? Here’s the quote:

“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn’t turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents–were they the stuff of Literature? At best, they might aspire to the condition of onlookers and bystanders, part of a social backdrop against which real, true, important things could happen. Like what? The things Literature was about: Love, sex, morality, friendship, happiness, suffering, betrayal, adultery, good and evil, heroes and villains, guilt and innocence, ambition, power, justice, revolution, war, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the individual against society, success and failure, murder, suicide, death, God.”

When I talk to people (and I love talking to people, about the deep, real, raw instances of life), their stories usually share a similar theme: a lack of contentedness. A struggle for happiness. A desire to be happy, fulfilled, but just not being able to reach that state. I have spoken to people my age, people younger, and those who are older. People who are healthy, people who are single, married, divorced, widowed – all sorts of people. And yet when I ask “are you happy?” I am usually met with silence, tears, or shock. The shock comes from my question, I think. We hardly ask. Are you happy? Are you okay? And when people do ask if you’re “okay”, they rarely ever wait for a response. As characters, as people, they have grown accustomed to a life filled with conflict and damage.

Which brings me to the second quotation, also one that has affected me greatly:

“I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not,except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it,and how this affects our dealings with others.Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it;some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.”

We are all damaged. Some of us beyond repair. Some of us still try to find a sense of lightness. Some try to heal. Others take up therapy, others become healers, while others just disconnect entirely from the world of emotions, to “avoid further damage.” Does it mean they are ruthless, like Barnes states? I disagree. But I do wonder whether damage really lasts a lifetime. Do damaged people bring on further damage to those around them? A friend says we always need to be in a “healthy” environment, away from anyone that is emotionally damaging to our well-being. I haven’t made up my mind. As always, I am listening, observing, and analyzing. My one conclusion so far is that we are all one Psycho Nation.