Cats & Dogs

In keeping with my theme of lessons learned from nature, today's lesson came from my own pets. As my Black Lab was stretched out in the single strip of sunshine in the sun room, the cat came up and sat next to him. She leaned over and started licking his ear, and continued "cleaning" him for a while, as he soaked it all in.

Lesson learned: Just because people tell you that you should be mortal enemies, does not mean it has to be that way.

We have centuries of experience with religious groups hating on each other, countries at war over politics, religion and money. We have children of different ethnic backgrounds told that they shouldn't play together. Just like my cat and dog, there really is no good reason why we cannot live in harmony if we choose to. My cat and dog don't know that they're supposed to be enemies, so they are not.

How many of our behaviors and attitudes are learned? Most of them. Just like Lennon's song "Imagine," it is fun to think about what our world would be like if we didn't have the various dogmas that have been pounded into our brains throughout the ages. I want to try living my life tomorrow as if I never knew any dogma in my life, no preconceived ideas of how things should be, no "coulda's" or "shoulda's." What do you think will happen?

Until later,

Steph