(no subject)
I am sitting in my history class trying to make sense of the way the world works. Today is a beautiful sunny spring day, and just a few hours ago my dear dog Maggie passed away from an unexplainable tumor that sprung up in just five short weeks. Before she came to us she was used to breed puppies, back to back to back litters, then was sent to a home where they beat her and made her fear human beings. She had many lovely years with us and I love her very much. I can't accept that she can be taken just like that, no explanation, no reason. And that is the inexplicable nature of life.
I can say with confidence that what little faith I had in karma no longer exists. I have spent so much time being constructive in my life, trying to be kind and helpful to the people in my life, to help strangers, animals, the living world around me. I've given my time and money and attention to positive things and tried to face every day with a smile, but in the last few months the good things have seemed fewer and farther between. I don't intend to change anything about the way I try to live my life, but I give up on some naive, hopeful notion that good deeds will be miraculously rewarded. They won't. Good things happen, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes terrible things happen. Sometimes beautiful things slowly erode away into something frightening and dark. That is the nature of the world we are born into.
So a sweet little dog that never harmed a fly has left my life, and the grief I feel seems sharper and more sickening than the many losses of animal friends I've felt over the last year. But as I sit here in this lecture room with 200 people who don't notice that I am here, I try accept the nature of things. Today the sun came out and something I loved is gone. Another soul leaves us for who knows what. But I will love more animals, more people, more sunny days, and I will lose them too. The inexorable march of time will not cease for anyone, nor hiccup long enough for us to catch our breath. We grieve, we cry, we struggle, but nothing changes. Somewhere, a new puppy is born and loved. And my lecture begins.
I can say with confidence that what little faith I had in karma no longer exists. I have spent so much time being constructive in my life, trying to be kind and helpful to the people in my life, to help strangers, animals, the living world around me. I've given my time and money and attention to positive things and tried to face every day with a smile, but in the last few months the good things have seemed fewer and farther between. I don't intend to change anything about the way I try to live my life, but I give up on some naive, hopeful notion that good deeds will be miraculously rewarded. They won't. Good things happen, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes terrible things happen. Sometimes beautiful things slowly erode away into something frightening and dark. That is the nature of the world we are born into.
So a sweet little dog that never harmed a fly has left my life, and the grief I feel seems sharper and more sickening than the many losses of animal friends I've felt over the last year. But as I sit here in this lecture room with 200 people who don't notice that I am here, I try accept the nature of things. Today the sun came out and something I loved is gone. Another soul leaves us for who knows what. But I will love more animals, more people, more sunny days, and I will lose them too. The inexorable march of time will not cease for anyone, nor hiccup long enough for us to catch our breath. We grieve, we cry, we struggle, but nothing changes. Somewhere, a new puppy is born and loved. And my lecture begins.