Attachment and Detachment

1941:

What does it feel like to ‘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 can show amazing loyalty and affection for the loveable. Conversely, with the ugly or used-up, I notice how uninterested I can be.

I can see how it happens, with things I acquire but then get bored with, even friends I make who I lose interest in. I know it even happens with companion animals, who don’t have the same fascination as when they first appear on the scene. 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.

I’ve found (rather too late in life) that in order to stabilise my relationships with anything or anyone I mustn’t try too hard. With people, as soon as a difference appears a threat is felt, as if they want me to be like them, or them like me. I don’t have that trouble with another species. It’s all easy enough with dogs and cats, because they don’t pretend to be other than what they are, and that’s so endearing. I’m happy to be around them - they’re always ready to play, and dogs especially are so loyal and affectionate, just as cats can be so intimate. They make me aspire to be close and affectionate myself. So, I’d say that animals can bring the best out in me, and squash any inferior/superior preoccupations.

The influence of a cat or a dog lets me see my sensitive nature but not necessarily my goodness, because with the less-dear or the less-loveable (human or non-human) I don’t act so honourably. That smelly homeless man, asking me for money. I ignore him. Or that not-so-attractive animal I might have eaten at dinner, In ignore any feelings that might spring up on the animal’s behalf. But this is where I’m sorely tested.

If I take a dislike to an animal (because I want to eat it) their feelings can easily be forgotten. 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 power or hold over me”.

         

It’s easy to show my kindness to a cute puppy or a family member, but I don’t have the same inclination towards a stranger and feel even less to an anonymous farm animal that’s going to be turned into food.

But all that is changing. Now, in this age, I’m becoming more conscious of a shift taking place, where the hard-nosed human is starting to look ridiculous and the once reviled soft-hearted (“bleeding heart”), gentler, kinder character is winning favour. I can see the balance-point changing here - moving away from dominance and force to a subtler, gentler approach. We’re still in transition, things still blow hot and cold, but something is happening - a move towards the kinder and compassionate is looking to a lot of people like the intelligent way to go. The loyal, mature, sophisticated approach fits better with this ‘age of relationships’ - we’re learning how to relate to things, to people, to the disabled, to minority groups, to farm animals, to forests, etc. I suppose we are beginning to see the advantages of acting more interactively, symbiotically and more altruistically. It’s no longer such a foreign idea , to think in terms of sustainability being a vital necessity.

         

And before I get carried away with speculation on the ideal present and ideal future, there’s another important binding factor - doing the right thing. Once a duty or a strictness or a discipline is now becoming an enjoyment. Perhaps I don’t have to earn merit points and get your approval for what I do. Maybe it comes with the territory, of being less in need of outside encouragement. I see possibilities where before I saw obstacles.

If we are about to rescue our species from ignominy, it will surely be by way of a willing change, an attractive change, shifting the ‘conceptual framework’ of ‘right action’. And in helping to repair the damage we humans have done, it becomes the most fulfilling thing we could ever possibly think about doing. Enjoying doing it, in other words. Work as play as work.