(4)

One week, then two weeks more pass by, and the world undergoes a complete transformation.  The trees and bushes leaf out; the grass grows at such a pace that freshly mown lawns seem overnight to turn shaggy again.  The daffodils wither away; the first of the dandelions have turned to fluffy balls of seed.  In the woods up at the cemetery, the bushes and trees which were, last time I walked there, barely fringed with green, are now thick with foliage.  Numerous small moths, brown and grey, flit across the path as I walk along; nameless buzzing things zoom by me so quickly I don't even have time to see what they are.  The mosquitoes, too, are out in full force now, whining as they circle round my head, looking for a safe place to land, ravenous for my blood.

I spread a repellent over all the areas of my body that are exposed, a liquid mixture containing various herbal tinctures – it's quite effective at keeping the mosquitoes at bay.  Of course, in doing this, I'm aware of the fact that I am denying them a source of food.  And though the point may seem so trivial as to be hardly worth considering, the fact remains that I am thereby effecting a small abridgment to the processes of nature, altering the terms of its functionality, delimiting its prospects for overall prosperity, simply for the sake of my personal convenience.  Of course, on the one hand it might be argued that anything I do, any act I perform, however small or large, may be defined as "natural" because I am, after all, just another component of nature:  I am just another animal.  Thus none of my behaviors can be judged "wrong" any more than could the behavior of any other animal who alters the environment to suit its needs.  On the other hand, it might be argued that my capacity to reason out and moralize my actions renders anything I do, any act I perform, the "unnatural" expression of an animal that is no longer only animal:  for I am also human.  Thus it becomes for me a matter of pressing concern to weigh up and decide upon the meaning and worth of my actions.

Is there, I wonder, no happy medium to be found between the disparate and sometimes conflicting aspects of the human-animal?  I remember reading once of a Buddhist monk who solved the dilemma, in one instance at least, by sticking a bare leg outside the netting draped round his bed so that, as he slept, the mosquitoes would have something to eat.  Another story told of a monk who would go so far as to carefully remove the lice from his robe and place them on a sheet of paper so that they could sun themselves of an afternoon; later he would return them to his robe again.  This story may well be apocryphal; I don't know that lice actually enjoy sunning themselves, and it would seem that the process of moving such small and fragile insects would like as not cause them injury.  The real interest of these stories lies in their consideration as to the degree of compliancy required in order to perform acts of true compassion.

I am aware, of course, that there are those in this world who would hold such consideration, when taken to the extremes these stories illustrate, to be not only foolish, but also unnecessary – even "inhuman," in a sense.  "Life," these people would say, "is in many ways harsh, brutal, and ugly.  That's just how it is.  To deny this is to deny what it means to be a human-animal living in, and with, nature."  That kindness and compassion should be expressed towards nature and its other inhabitants goes without saying; to take it to the point of self-abnegation, however, is to likewise abnegate the essential meaningfulness of how nature operates.  Hence, "Don't worry so much," these people would tell me.  "Go ahead and swat the damn mosquitoes!"  How I envy them the unmindfulness of their brutality!  They accept their own brute natures, and the brutality inherent to themselves and to the world, natural and otherwise, in which they live.  Were this view not so easily and readily abused, I would be much tempted to endorse it.

And yet I cannot.  I cannot because the world in which we currently live enables its human occupants to become so facile and self-indulgent in defining what constitutes "natural" forms of brutality that any philosophy, morality, or belief system that might be constructed from such a viewpoint quickly degenerates into nothing more than mere self-justification.  I cannot because, all moral or philosophical objections aside, I am myself so constituted as to make any act of violence I witness, and any suffering that results from that act, register within me as if its occurrence had been perpetrated upon my own body.  I am therefore loathe to condone suffering, much less to be the cause of that suffering myself.  It may happen that I am in my own way being self-indulgent; it may happen that I am overly "precious" in the attitude of my self-regard.  It may be the fact that I myself live in a pretty fair degree of comfort which allows me, ironically, to indulge in what others might qualify as mere squeamishness.  And though I don't doubt that my sensitivity is to a large degree innate, it may also be that certain social and familial influences have operated in such a way as to give this sensitivity an overweening, even a neurotic, cast.  It's difficult to say:  I am what I am, and have tended my whole life to believe that the self-defining and self-validating sensibility represented by this phrase provides me justification enough for my feelings and beliefs.  And yet, if this be the case, could not the same be said for everyone else?  Each one of us might be said to be the result of many varying confluent forces which, converging in such a way as to create an utter singularity with regard to our individual psyches, allows each of us to lay equal claim to a self-defining and self-validating sensibility.  We are each of us both completely separate and yet profoundly intertwined beings; each of us both contains, and is contained by, this world, this reality.  How can any one of us say we are qualified to stand in judgment of another?

But it must also be said that this perspective I offer, which strives towards the ideal of nonjudgmentalism, itself constitutes a judgment of sorts; is personal; is a matter of one individual's point of view, which may or may not be agreed upon by others.  The only defense I can offer is that it is my point of view; it constitutes, in fact, one fundamental aspect of, and justification for, my insistence upon "turning my back on the world."  For this "perspective" that I hold renders me incapable of entering the social fray:  I understand at once too much and too little of the importance of any action I might take.  It might be argued that my proposition of a "nonjudgmental judgment" of both myself and others is a form of cowardice, a bid for safety, comfort, and self-satisfaction at the expense of the society in which I live.  So be it.  In my own strange way, I too indulge in a kind of brutality.

I do maintain, however, that one benefit derives from the position I have taken which cannot be derived from any other:  that is, it creates the only possible scenario in which the act of genuine compassion may be said to exist.  For the act of genuine compassion remains the sole province of the outsider, the compassionate act being, by definition, disinterested, performed for its own sake alone.  It cannot, in its motivation, be undertaken in order to service one's own betterment, even if in the process of such betterment the life of another is improved.  Neither may harm be visited upon one life in order that aid be given to another, for in such a case the root causality of the act, if examined honestly, will reveal itself to be vested in self-interest.  In both cases the compassionate act becomes a matter of bargaining, contractualism, and trade-offs; and these are areas of concern only to those who endorse the status quo.  The acts such people perform may well still be worth undertaking – who am I to say otherwise? – but they can no longer be called a matter of true compassion.  I would, moreover, claim my right to be liberated from the contractual obligations such acts entail when they are performed on my behalf.  If the assistance I receive, when given at cost to another, is used to lever me into a state of compliance with regard to the harm committed, it amounts to little more than a form of blackmail.  When such is the case, the recipient of kindness need not necessarily be kind in return.

While in the woods today, I decided to take off one of my shoes, remove the sock, pull up my pant leg, and let the mosquitoes feast.  And now, tonight, the top of my foot, my shin and my calf, are all covered with small red bumps.  They itch like crazy!  I scratch and I scratch, but the itching will not be satisfied.  And what reward am I given for this?  There is only one:  laughter.  I sit here and I scratch, for the sake of kindness, for the sake of compassion; and I laugh, and laugh, and laugh . . .