Pondering Death and Discipline
Jul. 8th, 2013 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mybackup2022What a nice way to start the week...
So let's start with Discipline, shall we?
What got me thinking was the discrepancy between other peoples' perception and my own, when it comes to the question whether I'm possessed of any discipline at all.
People seem to think that I've got a lot, whereas I happen to, well, know, that I've got none at all. Because, in reality, this isn't about discipline at all, but about Free Will.
If I take on a task or responsibility, 100% of my own free will and as conscious as possible of the future implications, I stick to it. People admiring me for my discipline is a bit like admiring me for going to the loo. Therefore, taking the case of the tom cat with the inflamed eye, once I decide to do something about it, and the something means treating the eye with antibiotic salve, it is completely clear to me that it has to be applied at least once every day until the eye gets better (or until I have to decide on some other measure). So going to the Embassy on Saturday or Sunday may not be the best imaginable way of spending my weekend, but it's part of the original task and therefore not subject to quibbling.
Don't get me wrong, I'll take the admiration, if people give it, willingly, and I'm not going to enlighten anybody but my best friends -- who know me anyway -- but it's really quite misplaced. Which becomes painfully apparent when I'm faced with some sort of task, small though it may be, I have but absolutely don't want to do. If I can't wriggle my way out of it or delegate it, I usually end up doing it, but feeling awful. Marginally less awful once it's done, but that doesn't change the agony preceding it by one jot.
Egads, this is an extremely self-centered post.
On to Death, then.
On Saturday afternoon I went to have a look out the lounge window to make sure the street cats' water bowl still contained water (it's not awfully hot, but fresh water is, unsurprisingly, in short supply for street cats). I saw one of the kittens lying rather close to the water -- this is something the adult cats do regularly, i.e. lying even in the middle of the road in a very relaxed manner, but it's not something a kitten would ever do. It had been looking a bit off to me the day before, and so I concluded that the poor little thing was either very sick or dead.
Grabbed water bottle and a plastic bag -- in case it was dead -- and headed down, feeling rather queasy. Not because it might actually be dead, but because I was afraid I might take it for dead while it wasn't. Well, I needn't have worried about that aspect, because it was already stiff, and a wasp was busy exploring its eyeball. (It'll take a while until I get *that* image out of my head)
So I scooped it up with the plastic bag and threw it in the dustbin, which is horribly heartless but the only sensible thing to do.
Then I went back upstairs and had a good cry, hugging a surprised and slightly unwilling Lola.
It wasn't so much about this particular kitten -- I'd only seen it a few times -- but really more about the sadness I can't help feeling when something so full of life is suddenly lifeless. The energy that has gone into giving birth to it and protecting and rearing it up until this point being hopelessly squandered.
At the same time, though, I felt that I had somehow needed this; I could've left the task of picking it up and throwing it away to the caretaker, but in some way it felt infinitely better and more appropriate, even dignified, that I should do it, because to me it means something more than picking up a piece of garbage and throwing it into the bin.
And, strange though it may sound, it was, in some sort of way, good for me. It's one thing to feed the cats and give them water, and watch fondly as they eat and the kittens frolic, and quite another to accept the death of one of them and face it in its most tangible form. It completes the picture, somehow.
So let's start with Discipline, shall we?
What got me thinking was the discrepancy between other peoples' perception and my own, when it comes to the question whether I'm possessed of any discipline at all.
People seem to think that I've got a lot, whereas I happen to, well, know, that I've got none at all. Because, in reality, this isn't about discipline at all, but about Free Will.
If I take on a task or responsibility, 100% of my own free will and as conscious as possible of the future implications, I stick to it. People admiring me for my discipline is a bit like admiring me for going to the loo. Therefore, taking the case of the tom cat with the inflamed eye, once I decide to do something about it, and the something means treating the eye with antibiotic salve, it is completely clear to me that it has to be applied at least once every day until the eye gets better (or until I have to decide on some other measure). So going to the Embassy on Saturday or Sunday may not be the best imaginable way of spending my weekend, but it's part of the original task and therefore not subject to quibbling.
Don't get me wrong, I'll take the admiration, if people give it, willingly, and I'm not going to enlighten anybody but my best friends -- who know me anyway -- but it's really quite misplaced. Which becomes painfully apparent when I'm faced with some sort of task, small though it may be, I have but absolutely don't want to do. If I can't wriggle my way out of it or delegate it, I usually end up doing it, but feeling awful. Marginally less awful once it's done, but that doesn't change the agony preceding it by one jot.
Egads, this is an extremely self-centered post.
On to Death, then.
On Saturday afternoon I went to have a look out the lounge window to make sure the street cats' water bowl still contained water (it's not awfully hot, but fresh water is, unsurprisingly, in short supply for street cats). I saw one of the kittens lying rather close to the water -- this is something the adult cats do regularly, i.e. lying even in the middle of the road in a very relaxed manner, but it's not something a kitten would ever do. It had been looking a bit off to me the day before, and so I concluded that the poor little thing was either very sick or dead.
Grabbed water bottle and a plastic bag -- in case it was dead -- and headed down, feeling rather queasy. Not because it might actually be dead, but because I was afraid I might take it for dead while it wasn't. Well, I needn't have worried about that aspect, because it was already stiff, and a wasp was busy exploring its eyeball. (It'll take a while until I get *that* image out of my head)
So I scooped it up with the plastic bag and threw it in the dustbin, which is horribly heartless but the only sensible thing to do.
Then I went back upstairs and had a good cry, hugging a surprised and slightly unwilling Lola.
It wasn't so much about this particular kitten -- I'd only seen it a few times -- but really more about the sadness I can't help feeling when something so full of life is suddenly lifeless. The energy that has gone into giving birth to it and protecting and rearing it up until this point being hopelessly squandered.
At the same time, though, I felt that I had somehow needed this; I could've left the task of picking it up and throwing it away to the caretaker, but in some way it felt infinitely better and more appropriate, even dignified, that I should do it, because to me it means something more than picking up a piece of garbage and throwing it into the bin.
And, strange though it may sound, it was, in some sort of way, good for me. It's one thing to feed the cats and give them water, and watch fondly as they eat and the kittens frolic, and quite another to accept the death of one of them and face it in its most tangible form. It completes the picture, somehow.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-07-08 06:24 pm (UTC)You do good work with those kitties.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-09 09:45 am (UTC)*sighs* I do try. What's important, I think (but that's true for any kind of charitable work) is not to succumb to drop-in-the-ocean frustration.