Forgive my delay! I got lost in my own writing journey for a few weeks there. I also often contemplate the cruelties of my cats and dogs — these deaths that seem to be primarily about entertainment. As I see it today, they suffer a kindred kind of domestication poisoning that we do. They have instincts that have been confused by another way of living that has been imposed on them by humans. I think these particular animals are quite similar to us in their lack of synchronicity with the natural world. Wild animals have historically been much more in balance with the natural world. However, as we destroy every inch of their natural world, we are completely disrupting that balance, as well. And we have bears and coyotes doing all kinds of craziness because we’ve taken their land and their food supply. Whew. I will stop there.

I’ll get back to you on the “abandon all hope” concept. I feel I need to revisit the Pema Chodron book, and I have evidently loaned it to someone!

Hope the writing is just ecstatic over there! xo, Sage

All of this has me very curious, though…are we and animals as different as you describe? Could the death threats we use be compared with a leader of a pack of animals baring its teeth and rearing up to say, “my way or a fight to the death”? Could my childhood cat who killed and played with mice, or N’s childhood dog who killed cats, a goat, and rabbits–not to eat, apparently–be compared with any of the ways we take advantage of the vulnerable around us, even sometimes for pleasure? I really take your point about how our behavior seems so much more calculated and complicated and sinister than any of the other animals I’ve learned about, but I wonder whether we and they are as extremely different as we sometimes think. What do you think?

“Abandon all hope” does resonate with a kind of wisdom, a kind of release that can open one up to gladness when things go well, rather than surprise and scandal when things go poorly. I have to think more on this one, though, because when I try to imagine actually abandoning hope, I feel filled with despair and lethargy, rather than peace or true rest. Maybe what feels better to me is to abandon unrealistic hope, and rather nurture a hope that’s a lot more gritty somehow. One that recognizes how helpless we actually are, and how impossible it is to fix even a handful of the struggles in or around us. I explored this a little bit more here, I think.

But maybe I’m not understanding the angle you’re getting at with it. With hope abandoned, as you or Chodron thinks of it, what would life look like? Would there be joy? Would there be motivation to pursue healing or wholeness?…to love? I’d really love to understand this more.

This post made me think of the first gust of shock I felt when I read that Pema Chodron put a note on her refrigerator that read: “Abandon all hope.” I think this challenged something at my core: my sense of responsibility (and therefore investment in things turning out a certain way) for pretty much everything around me. I wanted everyone to be happy and safe and free, and I couldn’t fix any of the mess anywhere. And it was just terrible.

Well, I still want everyone to be happy and safe and free. But I return again and again to that phrase “abandon all hope.” It is like a deep breath that settles me in my helplessness. In a way, I think the “standard” that breaks our hearts is hope, rather than morality. We want to see the world a certain way, and we want to see humans do what we think is right in that world. And this is where we get tangled in knots: in the dissonance between what is and how we believe things should be.

The older I get, the more suspicious I am about what I think I know. And the more I respect my own suffering. Which makes it a little easier to respect the suffering of others. And I wonder what the world would be like if we humans sniffed each other’s butts, declared “friend” or “enemy” right off the bat, and then honored those instincts without the complications of how and who we’re taught to be in this complex culture of humanity.

julianne