Category Archives: The Evidentialism Files

More Human Than Human: Why Cats Get Nine Lives And Dogs An Eternal One

Kids aren’t for everybody. But parenting must be.

How else to explain our need to anthropomorphize everything, from hamsters to Hondas? We’re expert at morphing anything into something human-ish, and just as adept at convincing ourselves that anything human-ish loves us back (except, ironically, other humans).

So I get how crazed people get over cats and dogs. And I have to admit: there have been rare occasions when I have mentioned, perhaps even bragged, on my own domestic partners. But I swear, something’s weird about Teddy and Esme.

If I give them a treat, which is so embarrassingly often they must think they get a Snausage for farting, the hounds know the drill. Both know to sit, silently. Teddy gets the big rawhide, Esme the miniature. I usually give it to Teddy first, because he’s got those eyes that make you think he just came from cosmetic experimentation. That’s right, you manipulative ass, anthropomorphize the hell out of me. So he gets first bite.

And I always feel like a sucker, because the moment he has it, Teddy is gone. I am dead to him. He’ll run to the other side of the yard, like he’s afraid I’ll take it back. Or, preferably, he’ll chew it on the couch, where he concocts his own slobber and rawhide leather conditioner.

But if I give the mini rawhide to Esme first, she does something odd: nothing. She will sit there, treat in mouth, waiting for me to give Teddy his. She’ll do the same thing with food (assuming there’s not a treat in it); wait until Teddy’s bowl is on the ground also.

Whether you’re a vet or a dog freak (ahem), there’s something fascinating going on here. She’s either being polite or she’s waiting to see what Teddy receives. The first is unlikely, but the second is almost as odd; if I gave Teddy hamburger, there’s nothing she could do but accept her own treat. She weighs less than a quarter what Teddy does and knows not to be alpha over issues that matter; she won’t even eat from his bowl in the kitchen.

So what is she observing? And why? She’s smarter than most people I know, so I have to be careful not to assign brilliance. But I’d like the Dog Whisperer to come here and give me a straight answer. Cuz she ain’t talking.

And while he’s here, maybe he can explain Teddy’s behavior when I go to the spa. He and Esme normally bound outside for fetch when they hear neighbor-irritating rock from the jacuzzi and see me heading to the door in a towel (my nipples have become their dog whistle).

Esme, though, is a fair-weather fetcher. If it’s cold or rainy outside, she’ll stay indoors, right here by the space heater, which you will surely turn on before you go outside, thankyouverymuch. Allow me to anthropomorphize that as well; I love her to death, but Esme is all about Esme.

Not Teddy. Yesterday brought more rain to the Valley. There’s something about being the in spa in rain, watching water hit the roof as it percolates your insides. Storms are hypnotic.

Yesterday wasn’t one, but the rain came, hard. I grabbed a towel, knit cap and hit the spa. A good half hour. listening and thinking and settling. Finally, I turn the water off, open the gazebo doors, get ready to bolt for the porch.

And there’s Teddy. Just sitting, waiting. Wet as can be from puddling water. But he isn’t moving until I head in.

Hell yes I anthropomorphize my world. I choose to believe there’s love there, even if I can’t give you a reason why. Esme makes Einstein look like a monkey with a Rubik’s Cube. Teddy’s blossoming heart fills any desolate soul.

But that’s just the dad in me.

https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=3WFyajeFaE4&video_referrer=watch

 

At Last

 

 

 

The Theory Of One Thing (Or How God Died In The Big Bang)

 

The brutal irony of science is that, in discovering how to measure matter, it discovered that nothing does.

Where once science argued the Big Bang theory, now we have the Multiple Universe debate, which posits that we are more granular than we ever thought. That our macrocosm, the cosmos we once saw as infinite, is actually just a contact lens in a sea of countless infinities. It’s enough to leave you scrambling for a blankie, pacifier and bottle of Jack to forget our insignificance.

But we can’t help but add humanity to our search for worlds without it. For what is atheism, if not faith? We side with science because it has a better track record; you know what? Turns out the world isn’t flat. The sun doesn’t revolve around our planet. Human sacrifice won’t bring rain. Our bad.

Religion, on the other hand, prefers to retrofit theories to explain an ever-empirical world. Hell yes dinosaurs roamed our neighborhood only a few millennia ago; God just has his own daylight savings plan and time zone; He’ll explain when you get there.

But when we hear Stephen Hawking explain so convincingly  the workings of the cosmos — that time had an official beginning like an Olympic starter pistol, that everything sprang from nothing, that there really are bottomless pits (we just call them black holes)  — we must take it with the same faith as a Pentecostal must accept god. How is the Big Bang on a scale any less miraculous than the loaves and fishes? Science is great at explaining the laws of nature. But whence the lawmaker? Give this to faith: It can be a lot less depressing  than quantum physics.

Perhaps the answer lies not in Hawking’s mind, but his body, which continues to fade like a collapsing star. The macro from the micro, as when a split atom alters so many molecules. Hawking embodies our own conflict with existence. He should have been dead 50 years ago, but still fights the darkness that consumes his life.  He has elevated us without movement, illuminated galaxies from a wheelchair and serenaded our choir with a gospel chanted through a Speak n’ Spell.

Maybe he has inadvertently stumbled on the singularity that unites both sides of the pew.

That life, no matter how you define it, finds a way.

The River Card

I’ve never imagined myself not being a newspaperman. It’s strange, the drift, since I left daily journalism.

But there’s been this odd calmness to everything. Maybe it has something to do with dad’s death. I dunno, but to have the job come end didn’t fall me like it has others who caught the blade. They’re devastated.

But I don’t have an ounce of anger in me. The New York Times quoted me in the story about the layoffs, and at the end the reporter said ‘you seem awfully composed about all this.’

And it was the first time it occurred to me; I guess I was. But it seems we invert our energy, and I can’t for the life of me get it.

We rail against the inevitable. Yet we idle life when we get to steer.

Perhaps it was the diabetes early on, but i’ve learned to accept the world as she presents herself. When the world is truly revealing herself, truly fixing her gaze on you, it can be no other way. You will look this way. Your heart will beat this way. You will have this as your health. You will have this as your ill. Here is your deepest fear, and don’t forget your undying love; I worked all night on that. You thank mom for the help, though you wish she’d talked with dad first.

Or I treat it like a poker standoff: Check your hand, pair your threes and bluff the fuck out of the table. Sorry for the thematic change; swell of anger.

But so much we do get to choose! What shall I be? What path do I take? What shall I have my ancestors think of me? Where are the goddamn keys?

We get to choose that. Teddy and Esme live the life I tell them to lead. I am their good-meaning-but-naive mom, their mob card shark.

So why do we look at so much of our life as an unstoppable tide? Is it really that? Or is it the fear we’ll look foolish punching at a wave that will probably douse us anyway? I sometimes think it’s the latter, and it becomes an excuse for inertia. Beware inertia. It’s the mirror of life, yet a fiction. anything that lives moves.

Besides, I got no problem looking like an ass. I choose to slap the shit out of those waves. Sure, you may still get wet.

But the water, once you’re in, really ain’t that bad.