By

Pearly-Girl

    …Or as I think the entertainer Dolly Parton once said, “You can’t have rainbows without the sun and rain.” Although my dog dad has already authored a book about dog wisdom (Pearls of Wisdom: A Dog’s Tale . Amazon), with my input, this time I’m going for the fame with the claim of rightful ownership of this article. Besides, he gave me prior approval.

     My latest news flash for you humans: “You can’t have the Yin without the Yang.” So quit thinking you can and complaining when you can’t!.  Afterall, I can’t be possibly be blessed with all these beautiful white feathers that make me look really pretty as a real English Springer Spaniel, without worrying about getting them all dirty and tangled up in knots when I go swimming to cool off from this annoying heatwave.

   Here are just a few realities along these lines worth considering in the form of good questions you may want to ask or statements you can validate for yourself:

·       How could you tell you were happy now if you didn’t already have the opposite feeling of unhappiness to compare it to? Or this can apply to all the other opposites of success vs. failure, intelligence vs. ignorance, fun vs. boredom, light vs. dark and so on as I am sure you are getting the drift here.

·       Which came first—pleasure or pain—to give the experience a different name in judging the quality of the experience as good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, or desirable or undesirable? How did we form these judgements?

·       Now here’s a Yin-Yang reality that may be a bit difficult for humans to grasp: You can’t be entirely free from the responsibility of belonging to something, whether it be a family, church, school, political party of any other social group. You can’t be free without the responsibility of exercising the freedom responsibly. And this means being controlled in some ways by the group you belong to. So, are you ever really free?

·       If you want true security, then you can’t keep all your security blankets from any of the groups you belong to. I believe Alan Watts, the human philosopher at Berkley, said this best in his book “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” Be brave and bold enough to shed all your faux security blankets, and then real security is underneath.

·       Now in a recent book, “The War of Art,,” (not “The Art of War”)another human author, Steven Pressfield, makes a very good case that artists can’t achieve their special calling for greatness, without overcoming a powerful force paralyzing them, which he calls “resistance.” Now fortunately we dogs don’t have to worry about this particular Yang, because just being good is always good enough. There is no wanting more.

    If this practical dog wisdom doesn’t clarify my point well-enough, here are some more erudite quotes on the issue from humans a tad more eloquent that me:

·       “If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom and find the blessing in every curse.” ~Anthon St. Maarten.

·       “In this world, there is no absolute good, no absolute evil,” the man said. “Good and evil are not fixed, stable entities but are continually trading places. A good may be transformed into an evil in the next second. And vice versa. Such was the way of the world that Dostoevsky depicted in The Brothers Karamazov. The most important thing is to maintain the balance between the constantly moving good and evil. If you lean too much in either direction, it becomes difficult to maintain actual morals. Indeed, balance itself is the good. ” ~Haruki Murakami.

·       “Often, the truly great and valuable lessons we learn in life are learned through pain. That’s why they call it “growing pains.” It’s all about yin and yang. And that’s not something you order off column A at your local Chinese restaurant.” ~Fran Drescher.

·       “If you want to live a balanced life, you must admit human nature is yin and yang, day and night, love and hate, you can’t reject it. It’s all about embracing it, and celebrating the fact that we are weak, and out of that emerges great power.” ~Adam Darski.

·       “Your greatest attribute, that which allows you to accomplish most in life and the most treasured aspect of your being will often be the source of your greatest suffering.” ~Chris Matakas.

     And if these longer quotes above aren’t explaining this all well enough, here are a few shorter ones I like:

·       “We are not meant to be perfect; we are meant to be whole.” ~Jane Fonda.

·       “In the black, there is some white; in the wrong, there is some right; in the dark, there is some light; in the blind there is some sight.” ~Abhinyana.

·       “We are only different because there exists something to be different from, and it is this difference that bonds us.” ~Chris Matakas.

·       “Freedom without discipline is foolish, discipline without freedom is insanity.” ~Ilona Mialik.

·       “Words and pictures are yin and yang. Married, they produce a progeny more interesting than either parent.” ~Dr. Seuss.

·       “Countless words count less than the silent balance between yin and yang” ~Laozi.

·       Rudyard Kipling once wrote: “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”

    Okay, let me end this discussion with some very simple dog wisdom. When I’m hot, I stop moving and just lay motionless by the fan. I may even put on a slight look of distress, thinking someone might take me for a swim in the cold river out back. But if not, that is okay. When I need to pee or poop, I go to the back door and sit until someone notices what I am asking for. I used to have a bell to ring, but I don’t need that anymore. When I am hungry, I go to the cupboard where my kibble and treats are, and either will be okay. And I am okay with the sitting, paw shake, and bang-bang your dead drill routine before the reward. When I am not hungry, I don’t do anything, but maybe drink some water. Lately, I am slowing down, so I do everything slow instead of fast (unless I am chasing a squirrel).  That makes all the fun last longer to remember when I get bored.

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Pearly-Girl is the same age as her two human parents (77), so they all get along just fine realizing the slowing down and annoyances of getting older are just a shadow of their earlier memories of the enjoyment of youthful vigor. That perspective helps the annoyance to become less annoying. Simple dog wisdom.