Attachment and Detachment

1845:

What does it feel like when we feel or even express ‘respect’? When I’m deciding who or what to respect, or when to develop a relationship or when to trash things that are no longer useful, I find it’s easy to like the likeable. I know I’m capable of showing respect for them and I can show loyalty and affection for the loveable. Conversely, with the ugly or used-up, I notice how readily I can move away from them.

I see how it happens even with things that I acquire but then get bored with, even friends who I’ve lost interest in. I know people where this happens with their companion animals. Often it’s a cute kitten or an adorable puppy dog. As they grow towards adulthood, and perhaps don’t have the same fascination for their humans as when they first appeared on the scene. Like any product reaching its use-by date, they are got rid of at the first opportunity. But whether it’s possessions, friends, cats or even gardens, they each have the power to benefit us or bring us down, depending on how we treat them.

To stabilise my relationships with anything or anyone, I must maintain my respect for them or a sense of play with them. It’s easy enough with dogs and cats and kids, because they’re always ready to play, and we respect them for this and hope it will rub off on us; they don’t pretend to be other than they are, and that’s so endearing. One hopes that perhaps we can by-pass respect and go straight towards naked love. When we’re ‘feeling together’, in an unselfconscious, letting-go friendly atmosphere, it’s just simply enjoyable being with the intimate, because they bring out the best out in us.

         

The influence of a cat or a dog lets us see our sensitive nature, but not necessarily our goodness. We find them cute and attractive in their manner and probably in their looks too. The young are always irresistible. But with anyone or anything less-dear, it’s a different story.

I don’t act so honourably with the less-loveable, human or non-human. That smelly homeless man, asking me for money. I ignore him. Or that not-so-attractive animal you might have eaten at dinner, you ignore that animal’s being. Farm animals are regarded as non-beings. They’re always on tap ready to be used up. Perhaps we learn to despise them for being so subservient and powerless, although how we get from such levels of disregard that we can murder and eat them is beyond me.

Perhaps what happens is that animals are tame – and it’s rather like fame being thrust upon us. It makes us feel special, in fact so special that we can afford to withdraw intimacy and friendly feelings altogether. There’s a certain safety that comes from knowing that those domesticated animals have no power over us, so they pose no threat. So, I can say, “They can’t possibly hurt me even if I ignore them or hurt them. They have no hold over me”. But subtly they do. Their body tissues and secretions are attractive foods for humans, and as such become addictive substances we can’t do without. Then the animals get their revenge as a weight on our conscience for harming them and as a harm to our bodies for ingesting them. We play dangerously ugly games with what we perceive to be ‘ugly animals’.

         

It’s easy to show our kindness to a cute puppy or to the young-person member of the family, but we won’t necessarily be so kindly inclined towards a stranger (human). And we’ll feel even less warm towards an anonymous farm animal (non-human) who is going to be turned into my favourite food.

         

But all that is changing. Now, in this present age, we are becoming more aware how unattractive is the hard-nosed human. And conversely, a once-reviled, soft-hearted (“bleeding heart”), gentler, kinder character is emerging to replace the meat-eating animal-despisers. And so, the balance point of our society is starting to change.