Oh! To Be A Cat!

 This week's quotation, by 19th century novelist Samuel Butler, reads, "All living beings except man know that the main purpose of life is to enjoy it." And it is accompanied by a picture of a very contented looking cat - see below.

And, while I do not agree with Butler entirely - the purpose of life for many living beings seems to be either to survive long enough to procreate, and then die (like mayflies) or to not be eaten by another creature (like many small animals). Not much enjoyment there...

Nevertheless, I would agree with him in the case of much loved pets, such as cats and dogs. There is a cartoon showing a man taking his dog for a walk, with a thought bubble coming from the heads of each. And whereas the man is thinking about all kinds of things, oblivious of the beauty around him, unaware of the joy of the walk, the dog's thoughts are firmly fixed in the present - he is enjoying his walk with his human.

And cats seem to be the same... or at least, well-loved and pampered cats seem to be the same. If I believed in reincarnation, I would like to come back as a loved and spoiled cat. Like my Luna. Who seems to spend most of her life curled up on either my knee (if it is available) or a comfortable chair or bed. She is fed twice a day, and has the freedom to come and go as she likes, through the cat flap. She is entirely without responsibilities, except perhaps to keep us happy by seeming to enjoy our company.

When I'm feeling tired or stressed, I sometimes think wistfully that I would like to change places with her. But not seriously - I have learned to embrace my complex, wonderful life, and to appreciate that we have to "welcome and attend them all"  - both joys and sorrows, pleasures and frustrations - as Rumi says in his poem, The Guesthouse. Our ability to do this is what makes us human.

Learning to Live with Ourselves

 "The joyful one smiles when he is with his friends. The fortunate one smiles even when he is alone."

This, according to the Harenkalender, is a quote from Asiatic wisdom.

It is something I have rediscovered over the past few years - it didn't come naturally. Or at least, it did when I was a child, but was forgotten as I grew up and became the kind of person who needed the validation or approval of others to be happy. So I spent much of my teens, twenties and thirties and even forties doing what Brené Brown calls "acclimating" - learning to be a social chameleon, so that I fitted in with other people. And using alcohol to lubricate the journey. I now feel sad for that young woman, who believed that she had to suppress her own beliefs, her own opinions, in order to fit in, wasting her time chasing the elusive goal of popularity.

As I have written before, my spiritual journey began in the mid-noughties and has continued ever since. I now hope that I will never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop striving to be the best Sue Woolley I can be. And if that means that I am not popular, so be it.

I used to be terrified of solitude. I suffered from FOMO - the fear of missing out - and would drop everything to spend time with my friends. These days, I have rediscovered my natural ambiversion, and am just as happy to curl up with a book or sit in front of my laptop writing, as I am to be socialising. In fact, since I quit drinking in 2013, I have learned that I am happiest in my own company, or with one or two close friends or with my husband and children.

Of course, there is a difference betwen choosing to be alone and being forced into it. The recent pandemic has had many negative consequences, one of which was enforced solitude, which I blogged about here. It is only when we choose to be on our own that it can bring a smile. Because loneliness can be a terrible thing - it makes us feel unloved, unwanted, as though the world has passed us by. Whereas solitude, the ability to spend time alone, by our own choice, with the Spirit, can be wonderful. 

I have also come to appreciate silence and no longer feel the need to fill all the spaces in my life with words. I have found that sometimes, to sit in silence, either meditating or placidly crocheting, is to be at peace. I have learned to be at peace with myself and that is good.

 

Looking on the Bright Side

 Friedrich Löchner was a 19th century Lutheran minister, first in Germany, then in the US. He wrote many hymns and also this: "A year is long - and making every day an unrepentent celebration is the highest art of living."

I'm not sure what I think about this sentiment. As a natural optimist, I would embrace it - I journal about the things I am grateful for each night, for example. Yet I cannot help thinking that it is simply not possible. Every day is not a cause for "unrepentent celebration", not for me, not for anyone. Everyone has some trials, some sorrow in their lives. I guess that finding something to celebrate in each day is a worthy goal, and it is a better way to live than finding things to be gloomy about instead. I am far more of a Tigger than an Eeyore, and tend to look on the bright side of life. I have blogged about this here.

But still. Although I personally may be able to celebrate something good each day, I am well aware that for many people, this is not the case. I only have to read or listen to the news to see that all is far from well in the world. 

Perhaps it would be best for me (for all of us who have something to celebrate each day) to spend at least part of each day trying to make the lives of others less fortunate than ourselves better. And then celebrate that. 

The Experience of Joy

 Mark Twain, the American author of The Adventure of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, once wrote, "Joy can only be fully enjoyed when someone else is happy too."

And yes, I agree up to a point. This Christmas, for example, was made very special by spending time with my extended family and being joyful together, finding joy in each other's company. Being joyful because everyone else was too. Yet it was overlaid by the sorrow of knowing that my mother is getting very frail and that this might be her last Christmas with us.

And when we read or see another in sorrow, it can urge us to do something to lighten that sorrow, to make the other person happy again, joyful again.

Unitarian minister, Lindy Latham, goes to the heart of the matter.. In the anthology With Heart and Mind, she wrote, "Perhaps one of the most difficult things that we have to do during our everyday lives in this troubled and demanding world is to discover how to embrace and experience moments of joy as they ae offered to us. Is it possible for them not to be dimmed through our awareness of the pain and demands of others, which can also include a feeling of guilt at our good fortune in the face of our difficulties?

    I believe that we can do this without denying the suffering of others, or turning our backs on their needs, or indeed by just leaving them temporarily on the back burner whilst we delight in our own joy.

    For me it is about learning to hold them together, so that by being alive to our own wonders and delights, this feeling can flow out to individuals and the world in a way that is both healing and enriching."

I totally agree with Kahlil Gibran's Prophet, when he says, "the self-same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears... The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." Because joy and sorrow are the deepest feelings that human beings can have, and I truly believe that it is not possible to experience either deeply, unless we allow ourselves to be open and vulnerable to whatever life throws our way - all  its joys, all its sorrows. If we choose to numb our responses to life, because we are scared of being too sorrowful, that we won't cope with the despair, the disappointment, the loss, the grief, we are also numbing ourselves to the possibility of feeling deep joy. And that is truly sad.

It is entirely possible to be full of joy at one point in the day, then full of sorrow later on. I remember one particular day, early on in the pandemic, when my husband and I went out for a walk around the fields which surround our village. The weather was beautiful, Spring was showing herself everywhere, in the ditches and the hedgerows and the fields themselves. We saw a red kite wheeling overhead, riding the thermals with such grace and majesty, and heard the pure song of a skylark. It was just gorgeous and my heart was full of joy. And it was wonderful to share that with my husband.

Then I came home and logged on to Facebook, to find that a dear friend had died in hospital of complications from the coronavirus. My bubble of joy burst, and I was filled with sorrow by the news of his passing.

And yet, the fact that I had been open to the joy of the surrounding Spring helped me to be able to cope with the sorrow I felt. Without the one,the other would have hit me a lot worse. I do believe that if we live our lives vulnerably, at a deep level, we become more resilient to sorrow.