Gratitude and Positivity - A "Boat's" Perspective
Two Steemians I like very much tagged me in their respective posts: @wanderlass tagged me in her post on positivity and @futuremind tagged me in his post on gratitude, which contains a powerful list that may surprise you if you check it out . This is an interesting exercise, thanks for thinking of me. I'm grateful to have friends like you two on Steemit 🔆 🔆 🔆 .
I have had this in mind for a while now (I hadn't forgotten :), and, since both taggings occurred around the same time, I had intended to combine the two ideas into a single post. However, I have not been feeling very positive of late and have not been able to collect my feelings enough to express what I am grateful for in life. Late last night I walked amongst the woods and the hills, high on life, and ensconced in the moment. Some of the ice melted. I'm having another go at writing, let's see what emerges 😌.
When I think about it, the following three categories of experience have brought a great deal of positivity (eventually) to my outlook on life, and I am very grateful for having had them:
- Animals
- Being 'Mixed' Up
- Alienation and The Forgetting
Animals:
I grew up in a world devoid of animals. There were zoos of course, and pets in other people's houses, plus the strays on the streets – but I knew little of who or what they were! As a child, I would've liked a pet but it was out of the question. I had never lived with or become close to an animal until shortly after I turned 40. Although well disposed towards them in general as well as being vegetarian (now mostly vegan), I did not always feel at ease around animals - I didn't know how to behave or communicate with them. I had been bitten by a dog when around 7 or 8 years old, and that had had a psychological effect which I did not shake off until relatively recently.
Animals have now been a very close part of my life for five years, during which time I have (for various reasons, it seems) experienced only flutters of genuine human warmth, but unlimited and unconditional animal friendship, love and guidance. The emotional support I have received from animals has sustained me through many dark periods – and I shall extend this acknowledgement to Gaia in her Natural-Motherly entirety – plants, mountains, running water, tweety birds and the toilet spider that looks down at me as I sit enthroned - all have contributed in unfathomable ways. I have always experienced some discomfort receiving and accepting love and affection from other humans – barriers added to since childhood, complex inner dramas, sensitivity to the fake. Animals have helped me find a way through, and they also permitted what very few other humans allow another human to do – to love them freely and unconditionally!
Three individuals stand out in this regard.
Little Mr. P
In Aug 2013, I had a very special flatmate who arrived with a cat. This was my first real contact with a non-human being and I lived with them for a full year. Mr. P represents animal to me, for through him, I was able to understand the nature of human-animal relations in a manner that had not been accessible to me before. This was a revelation and produced a dramatic shift in my perception and consciousness. Mr. P became my closest friend (I think only animal-lovers will understand how this could be :) and I was repeatedly blown away by the level of communication, support and understanding that occurred between us. I would need a separate post to go into the dynamics of our relationship, but no spiritual teacher could have pin-pointed deep and hidden control issues within me more accurately than he did, or with a greater demonstration of patience, tolerance, wisdom and love. It helped and transformed me at a profound level, and I am reminded of an Eckhart Tolle line from his book 'The Power of Now': I have lived with several Zen masters, all of them cats. It has now been four years since we last saw each other, yet my phone wallpaper remains a photograph of Little Mr.P.
Ronnie (Rhonda)
When I moved in to my current place in April 2016, I lived with Ronnie (Rhonda), a 50kg, 12 year-old German Shepherd. We bonded quickly and I discovered the delights of human-canine interaction with that gentle and loving old granny. I groomed her, and massaged her arthritic joints. I came across books on animal communication, and a very interesting one called 'Dogs NeverLie About Love', by Jeffrey Masson, whose observations I was able to experience in action. Rhonda died in December 2016. She appeared to me afterwards during my days of mourning, tall and upright at my shoulder like the Wolf she really is, wild again and free of her ailments, promising me her continued love and support.
Shanti 💚
In March 2017, Shanti came to live with us as a 4-month old puppy. I lost myself in the fascination and delight and utterly entertaining joy of young animal life, such as I had never before experienced. Shanti is 18+ months now; we're great friends and really love hanging out in each other's company. I groom her endless fluff and we invent some very fine games in the garden. She appears scattered all over the barge-blog with her doggy poetry, our beach outing, our fox encounter or when she butts-in every now and then.
It is harmlessly ironic that in my childhood logic I used to think that all cats were female and all dogs were male. When I eventually got to know a cat, Mr. P (my name for him) turned out to be male, and the two dogs mentioned above, Ronnie and princess💚Shanti, are both female!
Other Animal Friends I'd Like to Thank
Being 'Mixed' Up
As a sensitive and self-conscious child it wasn't easy being of mixed parentage - Scottish and Indian. It meant having the characteristics and physical appearance of neither (actually both, but I only found that out later :), and constantly having differences pointed out in a manner that may often have been just teasing, but produced a deep sense of exclusion in my developing awareness. I experienced a compounded sense of rejection, felt accepted by neither one side nor the other and perceived separation and exclusion everywhere. I reacted to this by going away traveling to lands and linguistic regions where I was a foreigner anyway, where I was unknown and therefore unlabelled, and where nobody who knew me, knew of my whereabouts.
Traveling was a diversion from the whole identity crisis issue. I had never been able to force myself to fit in with groups, and on the occasions that I tried, it felt even worse afterwards. This sense of alienation led me naturally into introspection - I wrote diaries for many years - and I tried to make sense of the world from my individual, rather than a group perspective. This has been an excellent outcome for me IMO, and although I still have deep issues with groups at a social level, I am no longer confused about trying to fit in. I no longer seek a sense of identity in the external - indeed my life experience in this regard seems to have pushed me away from that form of security seeking, which I now understand to be intrinsically divisive (the existence of a 'group' necessitates an 'us' and a 'them' state of mind, often with the need to 'put them down in order to make us feel good'). I used to feel I was just drifting in a world of meaninglessness, with nothing to cling to. I still have nothing to cling to, but I have discovered significance.
Had I not had the opportunity to deeply explore the experience of being an outsider, I may never have looked inside to discover the beginnings of who I really am, or begun to shed the self-applied labels of external identity seeking (job, nationality, possessions, beliefs etc. ad infinitum). There were some other great benefits of mixed parentage too! Access to two different worlds, two languages, two cultures, exposure to multiple perceptions. This allowed a generally broader outlook on life to develop, and it softened the message of despotic absolutism each child is indoctrinated with: The world is the way we tell you it is. Believe, accept and don't question!. By having experience and familiarity with different ways of expressing the same thing, or approaching the same issue at a human level, a sense of relativity was allowed to develop. This was accompanied by a certain empathy and the ability to see that multiple points of view can exist coherently together, none of them absolute. It added to a growing perception that beyond appearances, there is actually more unity than division in the bigger dance of life. But it was extremely painful and confusing at first and the positive message took a while to percolate up and into my conscious awareness. Indeed much that I am now grateful for languished unappreciated in the suppressed recesses of my mind until relatively recently, after I turned 40.
Alienation and The Forgetting
A sense of alienation is related to what I have said above about being of mixed race. As stated, I could not feel part of a group and I constantly sought reassurances of acceptance from my immediate family (and later with romantic partners), with whom I never felt a sense of belonging. When I think about it, I have only really very rarely experienced this sense of belonging that I am trying to describe - the heights of being in love, precious stolen moments with friends or family, or special substance-assisted highs. When physically present in human social situations, a complex mental dance has always clouded the issue with me and I was rarely able to relax and express myself. But then I was at least partially seeking identity in external form. I had forgotten. My first 40 years were about experiencing the forgetting to the extreme, such that alienation and separation could be explored until the time came to stop. I had no idea what was going on and wondered mistily if I was my body, my mind, my thoughts, my actions, my behaviours, my responsibilities, my duties, my pain, my sorrow or anything else or any other experience or facet of 'myself' that I could possibly derive and contrive meaning from. Was anyone else like me? Was real communication between beings even possible? .......but there was mainly emptiness, numbness, and I never was able to figure it out with the mind! I had also forgotten how to feel my feelings, and the dead-ends I encountered are therefore not surprising.
The beginning of the remembering was triggered by the stopping - the pause; a moment of deep submersion in the drama of pain and loss, when the mind, utterly exhausted with the repetitive circularity of it all, ceased all activity for a moment. Until that moment when the mind went quiet, and I was able to experience this, the ceaseless mental chatter dominated utterly. This chatter was full of the intricate and speculative details of the Forgetting - the dance of false and illusory external identity. Perhaps I do not remember anything much, yet I do now know that I had forgotten, and thus, there is the open possibility of learning, of awakening that lies ahead. The closed world I had practically given up on - the increasing sense of drifting meaninglessness burst into a world of colour and significance. I could discover my own path and I discovered that I needed no external authority to tell me how to find it. I realised I was unique, and at the same time, no more and no less than any other being. I could now start accepting myself, and from this position of non-comparative inner self-worthiness, I began to understand my life experiences and to see how smoothly they slotted-in together to form a coherent picture that I was now better able to decipher.
How beautifully liberating the switch of perspective from the cold, zombie-like world of alienation and forgetting. How beautiful to now know that what one has experienced and played with, is nowt but an illusion, a masterclass of experiential learning and growth; not the disease infested swamp of dominant and random negativity it had once seemed inexorably to be. What a sense of relief, what peace, what gratitude has flowed out of this turn-around for me!
I am infinitely grateful to know, through my own validated experience, that there is expansion and that joyous discovery does not cease; that all the tools are every ready and available; that there is no going back to the old and the spent; that no external being can have power over me at the inner level unless I give permission - which I can always revoke! I am grateful to remember again that I am spirit, a formless being of light, having a human experience and playing with form and the Forgetting in a multi-dimensional dance of inter-connectedness and expression. Once again, I am beginning to re-experience the joys of remembering that there is no separation between 'I' and the Universe. I/We am/are ONE - Dream and Dreamer, Observer and Observed, Creator and Creation 🕉 .
Thank you for reading
Namaste!
🚣
This was a pleasure to read @barge
I find it somewhat sad that your connection with animals didn't occur until later in life, but it is, what is, and likely is why your connection is so profound. This is how I see it. I think the lack of connection laid the foundation for a powerful connection later on in life.
For me it was somewhat opposite. Growing up in an abusive household, it wouldn't seem likely that we would always have animals, but we did, and the reasons behind it are long stories of course, but the fact remains, we always had a dog.
I think back to these animals, who were the most loving and understanding creatures, and it makes me sad for what it was. They were suffering just as much abuse as we were, and we were all helpless, but they helped me through it. I believe my bond with the animals was stronger than the bond my siblings had with them, but I could be wrong. We all dealt with what was going on in our own unique ways.
Having those connections with animals at a young age strengthened my understanding of animals, and my day to day connections that I encounter (which aren't many right now). I have a unique way with them. Vicious dogs don't tend to react viciously to my presence, and most every dog takes to me very well (except my last girlfriends dog for some reason. I think it was an alpha male thing. Crazy little chiwawa. We had a love/hate thing going on).
These connections are meaningful and important in my opinion. I think we have a bit in common with our interactions with other human beings. This statement says it best.
Though our connections with other human beings have been limited, and perhaps even strange in our own perceptions, I am beginning to find great value and meaning in the connections I do make. We have an innate desire to connect with our own species. We are a flock animal, but not a single one of us is hardwired into this vessel even remotely similarly, and the more unique and complex we are, the more disconnected we tend to feel at times. I am not sure if I am really making much sense here, but I feel as though by having you as a friend, it completes a part of myself. I no longer try to identify with people who don't meet this completion aspect. I merely disconnect.
I believe you have communicated this to me in the past. It's very empowering, and I find it to be very true, although not an easy way of being to master. Introspection is something that you have undoubtedly spent heaps of time on, and I believe you are an enlightened soul with many blessings to come in your journey.
Thank you for this my friend. You never fail to help me put things into perspective.
Thank you my friend, for your heartwarming comment. This post draws inspiration from what you wrote about Gratitude and your invitation to me, I am happy you enjoyed reading it.
Defo. the case for me with animals FM, you said it bro :D ... Animals do put up with a lot of shit from humans and often, it seems the case that they are easy scapegoats ie. person X feels their life is out of control (shit job, treated and feeling like shit, blah blah) and takes it out on the 'weaker' being, who person X feels they can control. Sounds like in your young experience, all of you were treated something like this. I'm not surprised to hear about the bond you formed with dogs during that time - perhaps the one and only source of unconditional acceptance and comfort (soft, warm, welcoming, not judging, ever-loving) which appears to have been largely/totally lacking in the primary environment (siblings too scared to bond together? Or worse, the effect of divide and rule from controlling parent)? As you mention in a previous post about your dad, he still refuses to even consider that he may have a responsibility (even if one doesn't play the old blame game).
And this makes me wonder FM, I don't recall seeing any current photos of you with a dog - pets not allowed where you live? Like the 420 scene? 😩 ...... The reactions you get from dogs is amazing - I have around 1 in 20 bark at me, but usually when my energy is agitated, even if exterior is calm, 4 ignore me, and 15 come up and say hello. I so love it when this happens, and I will be looking to greet the dog more than the human walking it :D ....hmmm, real shame if it is the case that you are prevented from having an animal companion.
Thanks for your kind words again @futuremind. The game of isolation has played out in part for me - I have had the question 'am I isolated?' answered in the negative to my satisfaction. I can feel connections and being connected at an energetic level (eg in meditation, or walking in nature, or playing with Shanti in the garden), but I am yet to experience a sense of sustained interconnectedness with other human beings in company, especially in a social situation. But then I almost never go out or put myself in social situations these days, so I've not really probed this. I do feel a lot readier now - ie less pressure to humour or appease, more confidence to speak my mind rather than go along with something that doesn't feel right, going more with feeling and my own authority rather than what I think others think or want :D ..... there are a few people I express myself with, including my sister, but this is relatively rare. I can however, express myself to myself quite well, and this is very satisfying. Steemit has been a great outlet for me to give expression to various inner voices. My interactions with other users and my motivations for doing so have gone through a few iterations, but I'm now beginning to feel that I am finding my feet and my own space, and that I don't need to go out hunting and gathering, thereby ignoring the existing abundance - the warm fireside and the fact that there's puh-lenty of food in the cupboard (and weed in the grinder :).....
Take care bro and see you around the Steemniverse 🔆 🔆 🔆
Yeah bro, I'm in a communal living environment. Pets are out of the question, but that is what is meant to be for my life right now. I am ok with it.
In the physical sense, you may be a bit isolated from human interactions, but you are by no means isolated altogether. I'm often scolded by counselors that say I need to get out more and stop isolating, and people even say nonsensical things like, I waste my time, and spend too much time doing nothing. I laugh at those notions. First off, I am plenty social, just in a way that makes it more comfortable for me, and as far as wasting my time? HA! That is a joke to me. I really enjoy being along, and can barely find enough hours in a day to get to everything I enjoy doing. I don't think a single thing I do is a waste of time. People are so brainwashed to conform to certain thought processes, that they hardly consider what a person could be doing that spends a copious amount of time by themselves. And why should anyone care how the next person spends their time anyways? Lame..
I do think it's healthy to take a break from such taxing activities. For me, it's mentally taxing to do the things I enjoy, only because they require brainpower, but there are other things I enjoy as well, like connecting with nature, and smoking a fat doob every now and then. I can't do those things here, but all in good time. If you feel you are ready to mingle with the normies, give it a go! but take it slow. It's doubtful you will have pleasant interactions with everyone, because humans are such a volatile, and ugly creature in our nature. I hate to talk in such derogatory terms, but I have found it to be truth for a good percentage of people. I can't say how large a percentage, because there are many exceptionally awesome human beings, but ugly one's seem to be everywhere.
LOL at the animal meme you made. That made me laugh so hard I almost spit my coffee out. You should probably know, at some point, I am going to kindly blindside you with some sort of meme now. You started it haha.
ttyl bro. Peace!
Congrats on the curie! Very well deserved and it's for a post about the cute lovely beings. They all look like they have amazing personalities. I'm sure I'll see more of Shanti :)
I also automatically assume a cat as female and dogs as male. And someone jokingly accused me of being sexist because of that lol
Many thanks @wanderlass 🔆 as well as for the instigation. Shanti'll defo be around on the blog, she's sitting in my room atm and chilling :D
I wonder if it is to do with the gender assignment in our respective 'other-than-English' languages that made that connection. Coz thinking about it, the word for dog - kutta - in Hindi is a masculine noun, and cat - billi - is a feminine noun. Is there a parallel to this in Tagalog? That must be it for me I think. Good explanation anyway IMO 😌
That's interesting in Hindi. Tagalog isn't a gender specific language but for me I think it's the way they look. Cats look more feminine and dogs masculine.
And hello Shanti :)
I am sad that you didn't get to enjoy animal connections for so many years, but glad you found them eventually. My animal friends got me through a lot in my younger years and I often wonder where I would be without them.
Do you think there might have been more than just your mixed heritage that made you struggle to fit in? I know it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I never felt I fit in anywhere, but I realise now it was probably more because what seems important to them seems superficial to me. School was probably the nearest I felt to any acceptance and interestingly there was a mixed family there (Pakistan and black) who I now realise probably selected the school for the very reason that the children would struggle to fit in anywhere else. It was a Waldorf school.
Goodness, I know! Ever since meeting Mr. P in Aug 2013, I've started seeing animals appear in my life like they never did before. Even in India, in 2015/16, in the petless-house I grew up, there was a stray cat living, and I had the two precarious little kittens at the office in Delhi to delight me! I wonder where I would've been without the company of Mr. P, Ronnie and Shanti over the past 5 years. I felt I got the kind of emotional comfort and support from them that was missing from big chunks of my life experience. I don't resent not having had animal company as a kid, although it would've made for a very different childhood experience I think :) - I'm just glad to have animals around me now!
Yes absolutely @minismallholding I agree that a sense of alienation and separation is deeply embedded in the collective human experience. My mixed heritage just accelerated the move to the 'outside'. I was at boarding school in India, where as a junior, any attention was bad news and it was to avoided by ducking under the crowd or hiding in a corner. Classmate/peer loyalty was important, and it was only really in this bracket that I made individual friends, a few of whom I still have sporadic contact with. The school was old-fashioned, traditional-colonial and, I imagine, quite far from the relatively elevated ideas of Steiner/Waldorf education (although not as far as Summerhill School, which is the best example of an educational approach I have come across). It's interesting that you say that school was where you felt nearest to acceptance. I think my own lack of feeling of belonging to my family was projected onto my experience of 'groups', and actually continues in some form to this day :)
Hi barge,
Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.
Thank you @curie, I'm honoured 🔆 - simultaneously thank you @misterakpan for the resteem 🔆
This is my belief too. I've really felt it only a few times and each time was life-changing and life-affirming. I get glimpses though, and those are enough that I don't lose sight completely.
Your dual nationality is interesting. It can be challenging enough trying to feel like one fits in, however having the experiences we've had and being the age that we are shows us that that youthful turmoil, though necessary, really didn't mean that much at all. Or did it?
I wonder how we'll see our mid 40s if we reach our 80s. I wonder if the curve gets more mellow?
For me it was turmoil when I was in it, and until I understood its place and its function in my life. It fits perfectly and I wouldn't be whatever I am today without having gone through it. Here again, it is the significance of every thing that happens/happened (if not b+w meaning) that allows the pieces to slot together. If I were to remove pain and trauma from my life experience, I would be many pegs shorter IMO, and probably sleep-walking and dancing to everyone else's tunes, however discordant :D
Interesting! I think it is to do with perception and also what is currently going on. Everything is linked, remnants from any age (emotional residue) may resurface at any time if they have not been dealt with. I feel the curve has mellowed already - I am not frantically grasping at straws the way I was in my 20s. It was necessary then, as I was figuring things out. I've not figured them out now, but I'm not scraping about for the basic building blocks of life any more, I'm looking to work with what is there already. I did however, have to go through a period of time (early-mid 40s, pretty recent) where I consciously re-lived, re-experienced and then released a lot of the emotional pain and trauma from my first 20+ years!
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