Why so many of us are so devoted to our nonhuman companions
I asked one of the staff at Phinney Ridge Animal Hospital why we love our cats and dogs and other nonhuman companions so much. Her reply, accompanied by a sort of Hallmark Card smile, was, "It's the innocence . . . they are innocent."
So are babies, but man, do they crap in their diapers!
I mean, give the poor things some dignity! Here are the descendents of Dire Wolves and nightwalking ninjas with ripping teeth and talons on their fingers and toes and creatures that would give a nightgaunt the shivers, not to mention the occasional slithery type, scion of the dinosaurs, and other patients who walk or are carried through the doors of their office. Can you say "Sons and Daughters of Unholy Terror"? I knew you could . . .
Except that then you have to add, "civilized, intelligent aliens," as well. Because that's what they all are: aliens, as much so as ET ever was. And the reason we love them all so is that they love us back. When the intelligent, civilized (okay, so occasionally uncivilized; everybody has off days) alien being loves you back, you're owned. Your heart is theirs forever. They didn't have to love you in return -- that's not part of the deal. You agreed to love them no matter what -- but they have the grace, are the grace, to love you back. And that's when your heart goes to them forever.
This goes for the plants and fungi we raise and tend so lovingly, not for food, but for their companionship, as well. As much as our companion animals, our companion plants and fungi will forever have our hearts, for these wonderful non-animal aliens also respond to us and the loving care we give them with happiness and joy and their version of love.
The philosopher Martin Buber writes that we may address existence in two ways: that of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience; and that of the "I" towards "Thou", in which we move into existence in a relationship without bounds. Human life, he says, finds its meaningfulness in relationships. All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.
For "I-It" relationships, the "It" refers to entities as discrete objects drawn from a defined set (that is, he, she or any other objective entity defined by what makes it measurably different from other living entities). It can be said that "I" have as many distinct and different relationships with each "It" as there are "Its" in my life. By contrast, the "I" in the "I-Thou" is a separate concept. This is the "I" that does not objectify any "It" but rather acknowledges a living relationship instead. The "I" in "I-Thou" is radically different from the "I" in "I-It." "I-Thou" relationships are sustained in the spirit and mind of an "I" for however long the feeling or idea of relationship is the dominant mode of perception. A person sitting next to a complete stranger on a park bench may enter into an "I-Thou" relationship with the stranger merely by beginning to think positively about people in general. The stranger is a person as well, and gets instantaneously drawn into a mental or spiritual relationship with the person whose positive thoughts necessarily include the stranger as a member of the set of persons about whom positive thoughts are directed. It isn't necessary for the stranger to have any idea that he is being drawn into an "I-Thou" relationship for such a relationship to arise.
Despite the separation of "I" from the "Its" and "Thous" in this very sentence describing the relationship, Buber's two ideas of "I" require attachment to a word partner. Despite the splitting of these individual terms for the purposes of analysis, there is either an "I-Thou" or an "I-It" relationship. Every sentence one uses with I, refers to the two pairs: I-Thou and I-It. This instance is also interchangeable with Thou and It which would refer to I. It is bounded by others and It can only exist through this attachment, because, for every object, there is another object. Thou, on the other hand, has no limitations. When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing or has nothing, which thus means that Thou is abstract. Yet the speaker "takes his stand in relation."
What does it mean when a person experiences the world? We travel the world extracting knowledge from it. These experiences present us with only words of It -- He, She, and It -- in contrast to I-Thou. The experiences are all physical, and involve a great deal of spirituality. The twofold nature of the world, physical and spiritual, means that our experience of the world has two aspects: the aspect of experience, which is perceived by I-It, and the aspect of relation, which is perceived by I-Thou.
And the latter aspect, that of relation, is perceived most sharply in our experience of living beings which are not like us, the alien, spiritual "Thou" in relation to our "I." When we recognize the desire to love us in another, we thereby experience the true likeness of God in that other; and when we respond to that desire with love, we know it within ourselves. Something happens between ourselves and that other, that other knowing, sensing, feeling, alien other, and that something is God.
What is God, that that is very nearly the only halfway coherent, comprehensible thing we mortal creatures can know about God, of God? We can know this between ourselves and any sort of creature, for all creatures, as Saint Francis d'Assisi reminds us, are the children of God, their Creator.
A living being -- a man, a woman, a human infant, a cat, a dog, a butterfly, a snake, a jacaranda tree, an oak, multi-rooted prairie grass, a fern, a mushroom, an extraterrestrial or any other -- wants to love us, and we respond with love, reflexively, unconditionally, before we or they think. In that moment, for that moment, we know the true likeness of God. The images of God entailed in that moment may differ wildly, but the likeness is God, only God, forever God.
There are some adults that do that to you on first meeting; there is that in them which wants to love you, and, at least for that first instant, you respond to them with love. If you continue to love, you come into your own as a living creature. But if you recoil from your own desire to return that love, you thereby slam the door on heaven, perhaps forever.
Through our nonhuman companions and dependents, we learn that our living world -- that Life itself -- wants to love us. We are not alone. We were never alone.
And oh, yes, intelligent aliens have tried to contact us -- we just heaven't been paying attention. They've been right there in front of us, all along, hoping and praying we realize that they're there, wanting us to love them back. When we do -- if we do -- we will thereby gain the keys to heaven.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V84STSWVp3g)
So are babies, but man, do they crap in their diapers!
I mean, give the poor things some dignity! Here are the descendents of Dire Wolves and nightwalking ninjas with ripping teeth and talons on their fingers and toes and creatures that would give a nightgaunt the shivers, not to mention the occasional slithery type, scion of the dinosaurs, and other patients who walk or are carried through the doors of their office. Can you say "Sons and Daughters of Unholy Terror"? I knew you could . . .
Except that then you have to add, "civilized, intelligent aliens," as well. Because that's what they all are: aliens, as much so as ET ever was. And the reason we love them all so is that they love us back. When the intelligent, civilized (okay, so occasionally uncivilized; everybody has off days) alien being loves you back, you're owned. Your heart is theirs forever. They didn't have to love you in return -- that's not part of the deal. You agreed to love them no matter what -- but they have the grace, are the grace, to love you back. And that's when your heart goes to them forever.
This goes for the plants and fungi we raise and tend so lovingly, not for food, but for their companionship, as well. As much as our companion animals, our companion plants and fungi will forever have our hearts, for these wonderful non-animal aliens also respond to us and the loving care we give them with happiness and joy and their version of love.
The philosopher Martin Buber writes that we may address existence in two ways: that of the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience; and that of the "I" towards "Thou", in which we move into existence in a relationship without bounds. Human life, he says, finds its meaningfulness in relationships. All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou.
For "I-It" relationships, the "It" refers to entities as discrete objects drawn from a defined set (that is, he, she or any other objective entity defined by what makes it measurably different from other living entities). It can be said that "I" have as many distinct and different relationships with each "It" as there are "Its" in my life. By contrast, the "I" in the "I-Thou" is a separate concept. This is the "I" that does not objectify any "It" but rather acknowledges a living relationship instead. The "I" in "I-Thou" is radically different from the "I" in "I-It." "I-Thou" relationships are sustained in the spirit and mind of an "I" for however long the feeling or idea of relationship is the dominant mode of perception. A person sitting next to a complete stranger on a park bench may enter into an "I-Thou" relationship with the stranger merely by beginning to think positively about people in general. The stranger is a person as well, and gets instantaneously drawn into a mental or spiritual relationship with the person whose positive thoughts necessarily include the stranger as a member of the set of persons about whom positive thoughts are directed. It isn't necessary for the stranger to have any idea that he is being drawn into an "I-Thou" relationship for such a relationship to arise.
Despite the separation of "I" from the "Its" and "Thous" in this very sentence describing the relationship, Buber's two ideas of "I" require attachment to a word partner. Despite the splitting of these individual terms for the purposes of analysis, there is either an "I-Thou" or an "I-It" relationship. Every sentence one uses with I, refers to the two pairs: I-Thou and I-It. This instance is also interchangeable with Thou and It which would refer to I. It is bounded by others and It can only exist through this attachment, because, for every object, there is another object. Thou, on the other hand, has no limitations. When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing or has nothing, which thus means that Thou is abstract. Yet the speaker "takes his stand in relation."
What does it mean when a person experiences the world? We travel the world extracting knowledge from it. These experiences present us with only words of It -- He, She, and It -- in contrast to I-Thou. The experiences are all physical, and involve a great deal of spirituality. The twofold nature of the world, physical and spiritual, means that our experience of the world has two aspects: the aspect of experience, which is perceived by I-It, and the aspect of relation, which is perceived by I-Thou.
And the latter aspect, that of relation, is perceived most sharply in our experience of living beings which are not like us, the alien, spiritual "Thou" in relation to our "I." When we recognize the desire to love us in another, we thereby experience the true likeness of God in that other; and when we respond to that desire with love, we know it within ourselves. Something happens between ourselves and that other, that other knowing, sensing, feeling, alien other, and that something is God.
What is God, that that is very nearly the only halfway coherent, comprehensible thing we mortal creatures can know about God, of God? We can know this between ourselves and any sort of creature, for all creatures, as Saint Francis d'Assisi reminds us, are the children of God, their Creator.
A living being -- a man, a woman, a human infant, a cat, a dog, a butterfly, a snake, a jacaranda tree, an oak, multi-rooted prairie grass, a fern, a mushroom, an extraterrestrial or any other -- wants to love us, and we respond with love, reflexively, unconditionally, before we or they think. In that moment, for that moment, we know the true likeness of God. The images of God entailed in that moment may differ wildly, but the likeness is God, only God, forever God.
There are some adults that do that to you on first meeting; there is that in them which wants to love you, and, at least for that first instant, you respond to them with love. If you continue to love, you come into your own as a living creature. But if you recoil from your own desire to return that love, you thereby slam the door on heaven, perhaps forever.
Through our nonhuman companions and dependents, we learn that our living world -- that Life itself -- wants to love us. We are not alone. We were never alone.
And oh, yes, intelligent aliens have tried to contact us -- we just heaven't been paying attention. They've been right there in front of us, all along, hoping and praying we realize that they're there, wanting us to love them back. When we do -- if we do -- we will thereby gain the keys to heaven.
Click to view(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V84STSWVp3g)