16:51 Kier Dullea is reading this, on the radio, right now: Sherman Alexie's story, `Do You Know Where I Am?', a story about human being relating to each other, journeying together, lying to each other, loving each other, and coming to grips with what all of those things mean. This follows the `This American Life' episode, `Something for Nothing', in which a mother and father divorce because she cannot accept the mindset that induces him to eat the heart (of watermelon, literally; of life, metaphorically), and he cannot understand the mindset that induces her to refuse it. Petting the cat, the other day, I thought about an episode of `On Point' in which Tom Ashbrook spoke with two psychologists about Leona Helmsley's decision to split her Will between her dog and `the dogs of New York and beyond'--Ashbrook had used the term "unconditional love", if I recall correctly, and both of the psychologists agreed that... that wasn't really what it was; that it wasn't really `unconditional love' that was going on but that:
And I see this in my relationship with our cat. Walking by, I glance over at the cat, and then I stop and stare, and smile, at the cat--and she stares back. I ask of her, "What do you want?". She seems almost to smile, though cat's don't literally smile, and she rolls over while her eyes remain fixed droopily on me. "Ah." So I oblige, and I think--and I even /say/--"Awe, you're such a good cat. I love you.". `But what does that mean?', I ask myself. What exactly is she doing that's so good? Simply accepting affection is sufficient. That's it. And it's amazing, I think, that this is the sort of relationship that we have with our pets--that this is the nature of humanity, even: that we really want so much to love that it's enough for something, or someone, to simply /accept it/.
Wouldn't the world be a better place if we humans could (consistently) relate to each other like that? [Reply] |
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