Learning from my Dog
My Dog’s Teachings on Struggle
I started several essays this month but have been so distracted by news out of Gaza, etc. that I left them hanging. So here is a piece I drafted in 2019, which I think has resonance if not relevance.
At about 2:30 this morning, I hear my dog, Melau, panting and pacing around, his nails clicking on the bamboo floor. I reach out to pet and stroke him to ease the pain of his arthritis. He doesn’t settle. I get up and give him water. He drinks but keeps panting in my face. I get up again and give him pain medicine hidden in his favorite dog food. After many refusals, he eventually takes it.
I open the back door. I encourage him to go out, but he just stands there with me, gazing into the darkness.
Back in the bedroom, I try to sleep, but he is still right there, panting at me. I try hiding under the pillow. He goes into my daughter’s room and pants at her for a while, but she doesn’t wake, so he returns to stand by the bed. The air is growing damp from his steamy breath.
I get up, soak a towel in warm water, and drape it over his hips. This usually helps.
Not this time.
Finally, I get up for good. It is 4:18 AM. I sit down to work.
That is what he wanted. He lies down--on top of my computer cords. I regard my old, arthritic dog with fondness and frustration.
A thought crosses my mind: Melau has some lessons for us activists.
Ïndeed! For instance, the importance of knowing one’s real needs and fighting to get them met, even though you go head to head with your best bud. Our relationship is full of affection, but it is not an equal one. The imbalances are part of our material reality and can’t be eliminated, so we’re in constant negotiation.
Most of the time we work things out to mutual satisfaction. At times, however, we find ourselves in a genuine clash. Which leads to a struggle like the one we just had, a battle that lasted over two hours.
Who won? Well, he’s now quiet and relaxed on the floor in his favorite spot, lying on my computer and monitor cords. A subtle hint at what could happen if I bail on him. I’m sitting here yawning, typing, drinking warmed-over coffee. I’d say he got the better end of this skirmish.
Fighting for our material interests
Melau is clear about his material interests. We, in contrast, get confused. We become unsure where our interests lie, and how to pursue them.
The Beast in whose belly we all live often dupes us into going along with people—especially if they are rich, powerful or glamorous—whose interests clash with ours, but we’re fed a lifetime of stories about them. The term “stories” conjures benign images, but that’s hardly its only meaning. Stories may lead us to all kinds of unwarranted acts, even fighting and killing, not to mention spending our lives working for interests that not only don’t represent us but cause us all kinds of damage. That is the power of the stories these interests get us to believe and act upon. They fill our heads and we no longer recognize what we really need or how to get it.
Melau, on the other hand, is a committed materialist. His wants, needs, and actions to obtain them align. It’s impossible to fill his head with stories to make him believe lies about himself. Or that he should settle for less than what he needs, or that he does not deserve to get what he needs.
True, severe mistreatment might turn him antisocial, which would not serve his interests. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, so now, even in his vulnerable old age he is an unashamed, relentless advocate for his own interests, impossible to convince otherwise, or ignore. And at the very same time, he is sweet, friendly, humble, and patient.
We’re born with the strength to fight for ourselves, but this capacity is rarely cultivated or encouraged.
It gets blocked, stifled, and knocked out of us at every turn, and most of us lose the capacity to stand fully behind our own needs. Instead, we get conditioned to defend other interests, often ones running counter to our material well being.
Raising some What-Ifs
Well, what if we retained our clarity about our right to have our needs met, regardless of who we are? What if we held on to our capacity to go up against obstacles, even if these are powerful people and institutions, in our righteous struggle to meet our needs? What if we each remembered our right to what we need (our genuine material needs, not distorted ones instilled in our minds by stories), not to take from others but because humanity owes this to all of us equally?
What if we were able to hold firm to our convictions, struggle with each other in love and friendship, regard this struggle flexibly each time (not rigidly applying old notions) but looking at the present reality, which may remind us of the old but which has actually, materially, never before been seen? And what if this enabled us to arrive at new solutions without hurting or hating each other, with no one being dominated and no one dominating, regardless of relative strength or other differences?
Think of being able to collectively recognize our needs and the right to fight for them, as comrades, as community, and not settle for less, for any of us. Imagine emulating Melau’s conviction about the rightness of of advocating for our own and others’ material needs. And of learning to identify and reject the pull of stories that separate us from this awareness.
All food for thought for activists…
What else can we learn from my dog?
Persistence. Keep going as long as you have to, to get what you need. If you need to struggle in stages, okay. Rest on your laurels from the first skirmish, and then take it another step forward. After that, if you need something more, go for that, too.
Love. It is possible to be in a pitched battle with a loved one where you have opposing interests. Going head to head is taxing and frustrating; yet you can wage this battle from a place of deep affection and connection, as Melau does with me.
Note that this kind of struggle is different from irreconcilable differences between enemies. The chasm between warring enemies is huge, but what if it is not of a different nature altogether, but rather, one of degree? A hopeful prospect in the midst of so much hopelessness.
Conviction. Melau is convinced of his own needs, not because he is self-centered, but because he knows that his first duty is to live and thrive as best he can. He knows, not intellectually but in his material being, that he must do whatever he can to stay healthy, to survive. He never questions whether he is worth it, or whether I have better things to do than take care of him. He simply demands his due.
What if we did the same?
Escalation. We often initiate a campaign and issue demands, but many things get in the way of following through. Melau, in contrast, continually ups the ante (assuming he has strong motivation) until he gets the full result he’s looking for.
He doesn’t take pushback personally. I can tell he sees it not as an attack but a challenge, a force he must counter in order to get what he needs.
He may at times by defeated by greater force—nobody is home to attend to him or he can’t muster the strength for what he’s trying to do. But he never loses sight of his goal to get what he needs, and he always returns to the struggle, til victory—whatever that may be for him—is won. He never descends into resentment or hate. He insists. He forgives.
Rainwood House Movement Mysteries
Next month, with the encouragement and camaraderie of Nanowrimo, I am plunging into what I hope is the final structural revision of the second novel in my Rainwood House Movement Mysteries trilogy. It is called Rainwood House Burns.
This month, just ending today, I am completing the final polishing of the first book of that trilogy, Rainwood House Sings.
The trilogy is my contribution to the genre I hope we will in future recognize: Fiction Featuring Activists. You can find a number of articles and reviews of other authors’ FFA in issues of this newsletter.
I like to write about fiction featuring genuine non-stereotyped activist characters and situations. I like to encourage others to write in this genre. Which is why I am looking forward to publishing my own novel, with the solidarity of my fellow FFA novelists in the Activist Fiction Writers Circle, where we are organizing together to write and publish books centering activists and activism.
Thanks for posting clarity on what we need and society needs. We do need to speak up and struggle with others to do the same.
If we slow down and think about plants, animals, sky, and other beings with whom we share Earth, we will absorb more of their lessons, and lessen the harms we constantly inflict on them.