Saturday, December 29, 2007

New Year's Revolutions

To be a dog.

That was Tony's recommendation to me on the phone tonight; I can't claim it as my own. But it represents the highest wisdom, the most ached-for attainment. Tony (who should know, he who is faced with the greatest of consuming fears every minute of his days, and he who lives with two exemplars, each in their own divergent ways, of open-flowered dogness) offered this possibility to me as I recounted the past few hours to him: a twilight walk with Nelly through my favorite woods, a gift to myself, during which I felt inexplicably happy, full of hope. I found myself smiling. I allowed myself, knowing that to do so--even if only to the dark-stained tree trunks rising all around me--would be to intensify the effect, as well as the cause; smiling begets happiness, even as happiness begets smiles. They release intoxicating brain chemicals every bit as tastily fizzy as the first sip of prosecco (pop). I thought: This is OK. And Life is OK. People were right when they told me, no, promised me, I was going to be OK. So I smiled at the people I passed on the trail: we are simple, we humans; we can be bought for a facial expression. It changes everything, maybe the molecules in the air. People like you, when you like them first. The dogs greeted each other, exchanged their business cards, then disengaged to go see what was next in this interestingly scented universe.

Be a dog.

Then, an hour later, I'm on the phone with Tony, and the tears push up and over the dam, spilling in a crystal arc of never-ending liquidity. "What's the matter with me, Tony? Just a little bit ago, I was happy. I didn't know why, but I felt like I had gotten somewhere, and it was good, and now here I am, like something you'd need a lot of paper towels to get up off the floor." In his hard-won sagacity, he tells me I'm on a roller coaster now--oh, this I know!--and this is simply what life will be like for a while. But we're all on a roller coaster. From birth, which is the moment you get strapped in by the attendant. That's why "roller coaster" is the Number One Cliche. "You've got to turn yourself into a dog," he goes on. "Then you can be there, in the happiness, and not think about what's behind or ahead." "What's ahead" seems, at this moment, to consist largely of tears.

I was reading Time magazine, which is not something I recommend, even if you are in the fifth grade, which is where its reading level is aimed. The cover story was the obligatory gee-whiz look at the evolution of morality in humans. (When Time does a "think" piece, watch out: your world is about to be rocked!) I would prefer to always place "morality" in quotes: I think it's another of those fictive rationales built to retroactively paper over something a) we don't want to countenance (like, for instance, the idea that everything we do is biologically based, so we cannot possibly be separate from the rest of biological creation); or b) something we wish were true, but is simply not supported by observable reality. Hey, that's OK. Make a construct! Works every time!

Terry Eagleton, one of my early intellectual crushes, points up a) above nicely (see why I liked him?) in Harper's recently when he writes, "The structure of biography is biology. For all its tribute to the individual spirit, it is our animal life that underpins it."

The article on morality was written in the same infuriating, self-cancelling style that has become the New York Times's stock in trade: "fair," "balanced" journalism apparently means you say one thing, then in the next sentence you find something to contradict it. No matter if it's patently idiotic.

But I digress, as usual. Boy do I. (But dogs digress, don't they? Isn't that rather the form of their lives, one long digression composed of digressions?)

At least the magazine calls it by its proper name: it is "vanity" to think we are unique among animals. Then it goes on to say, "What does, or ought to [my italics, to show I don't comprehend this one whit], separate us then is our highly developed state of morality." But why do we NEED to be separated? Why do we insist on it, like a child hugging to its chest the blocks it doesn't want to share? Could it be . . . vanity??

Do we behave in so-called moral ways because we revere the notion of right, or because doing right works for us? This would be B. F. Skinner's view, I guess, and Jean Donaldson's, too, if we can extrapolate the motivations of our own behavior from that of dogs. (And here my cri de coeur is "Extrapolate away!") Be a dog.

If this is true, then, morality is really a cover story for selfishness. (Or what Time calls, in a bit of poetry that clearly escaped a sleepy editor's delete key, "a mercantile business" called reciprocal altruism.)

I make a vow that in the new year I will think more about this; I will arrive at theories, conclusions, revolutionary new ways of seeing humanity, earth-altering understandings of our condition. Then I will go on dog walks. I will shake off my self-absorption, if only for an hour or two a day, then do some clicker training with my dog. And I'll write here about a more proper subject than this incessant whining about my personal heartache. It will be a relief for all of us.

There are more resolutions to come.

Nelly ate her lapin tartare on the lawn for lunch today. This is one way in which I will not be a dog. While she undoubtedly found it the most civilized thing to do--the height of her civilization, that is--I found myself in a strange state of mind as I wrapped a plastic shopping bag around my arm and then felt the interesting weight of a recently live being's refrigerated innards in my hand. It was a transporting experience. Where exactly did it take me?

7 comments:

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Anonymous said...

I have just finished "The Perfect Vehicle" and I have to tell you that you nailed it right on the head.
As someone who came to riding late in life 47 I related to your desciptions of the passion and the fears of riding. I had always wanted to ride but with marriage and raising my son I never seemed to have the time. But when I saw my first bike alittle Suzuki gz250 I thought it would be a good learner and I won't go to fast and become a smear on the road. well that was 3 years ago and I now have a VL800 suzuki, her name is "Lil Suki" and we are never far apart. Thankyou for your Book.

David Backstrom
Beverly, Ma
Backah4@aol.com

Melissa Holbrook Pierson said...

David, I thank you. I'm always glad to know I share so much with others of similar mind. I went to the motorcycle show in New York City this weekend, and found that the longing for spring--and an agile bike under me--just as strong as ever.

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Anonymous said...

I'm a great admirer of "Vehicle" as well -- an unusually well-written book on motorcycles -- which is what made me curious about this blog. I hope you won't take this as anything other than a quirky observation but, it's almost hard to believe this blog and that book were written by the same person. Make no mistake, they are equally well-crafted, and I expected nothing less. But it seems like we glimpse an entirely different personality here than the woman who was streaking around the countryside on the Lario.
I wonder if you still own one, and do you still ride?

Steve
S. California

Melissa Holbrook Pierson said...

Steve, thanks for writing--and for the quirky observation. I guess the answer is that I myself am, um, quirky. I have a passion, I write about it; it's become the main way I experience the world, like the photographer who can't see but through a lens. Right now I find myself absorbed by animal behavior, and that means all of us animals (and I suppose that's really at the root of "Perfect Vehicle," too). I have also been visited with a pretty serious, life-changing tragedy, and I've been helpless not to write about that too. Apologies to all. But blogging tends to be a form that lends itself to immediacy; it's also a different form from book writing. I like the compactness of one little subject teased out in a short space. As for riding, I am primarily dreaming of it these days. The Lario has gone on to other horizons. But I have a funny feeling they can't find tires to fit it, either.