For myself. This morning I was thinking about whether I could honestly say that I am thankful for myself. It seemed rather silly, for I simply must be thankful for myself and my existence, even if I do not spend much time thinking about it. The gift of life may not be the most important gift, but it is the most essential. I cannot be grateful for anything unless I am.
For my mother. My mother is an impressive woman. So impressive, in fact, that she gave me a very skewed view of reality. I was born a week late but it was an “easy” labor and a nice healthy big baby. I knew that my mother was unusual in her confidence giving birth at home, but it was only in the past few years that I learned that normal women were terrified of the idea of babies weighing 10+lbs.
In a masterful display of horrifying foreshadowing Tolstoy writes of a horse race in which one of the main characters, Vronsky, pushes so hard to win the race by a long distance that he causes his horse to fall and break her back. In addition to Vronsky’s horse, more than half of the men racing fell and were injured.
Everyone loudly expressed his disapproval, everyone repeated the phrase someone had uttered: ‘We only lack circuses with lions,’ and horror was felt by all.
And yet there is absolutely no hint of a question of whether such races should or would occur in the future. The crowd watching recognizes that there is something barbaric about unnecessarily risking injury and death of both horses and men for sport, but no one thinks to actually stop it.
It seems insane. Insanely like the way things still are. I like the idea of sports like football, but can’t help feeling like something is a bit wrong when watching some games. How much of it is good clean fun, and how much of it is morbid fascination with completely unnecessary risk of injury?
I know very little of horse racing, but reading stories such as the one in Anna Karenina makes me think that it is not such a good idea. Is it really ethical to push animals so hard for the pleasure of those watching? What about the risk to the jockey?
And then there is dog racing. It has only been two years since Massachusetts outlawed dog racing, and I don’t know about its status in other states.
At the time it was argued that the fact that the dogs were “caged inhumanely and raced to injury” mattered less than the jobs of 1,000 workers employed by the racetracks. I believe that it is quite possible to create new jobs without harming animals, but the jobs argument still made me think. At what point do we make humans suffer at all in order to avoid mistreating animals?
And if horse and dog racing seem problematic, what about cock fighting? Animal injury and death are not incidental to cock fights, they are necessary.
But while cock fighting goes against cultural norms in the United States, it provides much-needed joy in less privileged places. And while cock fighting is grotesque and violent, is it really any worse than the factory that raises and slaughters the chicken which most Americans eat without thinking?
And then there are the sports that do not involve animals. What of the significant rates of injury in sports such as rugby? Can it really be justified?
Is it a responsible use of our bodies to deliberately take significant risk of injury for the sake of a game? Is it right to provide incentive for others to play through injury for money?
How do you determine what is acceptable ethically when enjoying sports? Do you have a solid line for what you will tolerate in terms of animal cruelty? How about a reasonable level of risk for the human participants? Do you think that Western Culture today is really any better than that of our Roman predecessors with their games?
For a world filled with babies. Sure, none of them are mine, but it still makes me quite happy to see several babies every day (something new for me) and even to read about blog-friends’ pregnancies and births.
Yes, the plot of Anna Karenina revolves around infidelity. And if you consider that a spoiler, then I am sorry. You should still read the book!
How do you determine what does and does not count as infidelity? Once you’ve determined what counts as unfaithfulness in your marriage or relationship, how do you avoid it online?
I confess to not being especially concerned about cyber affairs even though my husband and I both spend significant portions of our waking hours online. So I was quite surprised when I read one woman’s guidelines for avoiding cheating online:
1. If you’re married and are following someone on Twitter don’t chat them up all the time.
4. If a guy I was never really friends with in high school or college wants to Facebook friend me I decline. Why go there? I didn’t go to his wedding, he didn’t come to mine.
6. Also, when in doubt, ask. Example: I always ask the hubby if he’s okay with a picture before posting it on Twitter.
I simply cannot grasp what being married has to do with the appropriateness of retweeting something or accepting friend requests. It would strike me as a sign of something “off” if I hesitated before responding to a tweet because I did not respond to a man too frequently.
Part of me agrees that it is good to ask for one’s spouse’s permission if one is concerned about appearing too sexy online. But I am inclined to think that if there is a question about the appropriateness of something one should simply skip it and not require one’s spouse to make the decision.
One of the reason’s that I cannot understand this sort of standard is that the internet is so very public and casual. I cannot remember the names of half of the people I responded to on Twitter today and I do not think that many of them know mine. Sometimes the lack of personal connection on the internet allows people to share very private details of their lives, but this happens when we do not see the people reading our tweets and status updates as real people with whom we have significant relationships.
People follow or friend others because they are bored and looking for more random bits of e-life to add to their day. Some people may use the internet to stalk a long lost love-interest, but they can be dealt with on a case by case basis rather than a general rule of avoiding everyone of the opposite sex online.
I may seem incredibly naïve in my lack of concern about casual interactions online, but I think that my confidence is justified for a few simple reasons. As soon as I read the post about avoiding cyber infidelity I ran to my husband in mock horror and announced that I have clearly been cheating on him online. Goodness knows how many direct messages I have sent to strange men!
He agreed with me that there is no need for such concern since we are both the boring sort. Instead of rules we can rely on general openness in our relationship, the sort of openness which has us constantly forwarding blog posts or asking the other to look at something someone said to us online.
We have each other’s passwords. This happened naturally over time because I wanted to see one of his friend’s baby’s pictures or he needed information from my email account. At least in theory privacy is limited because we could always sign into the other’s accounts.
We share our computers. I would never use a friend’s laptop without permission because I consider it a personal space. One never knows if someone is in the middle of a private blog post or has files they would rather not have seen. But Josh and I do not hesitate to use the other’s computer frequently for many reasons. It would be possible to keep some things hidden, but it would take a lot of work and constant vigilance.
We talk about online interactions of interest. As online interactions with a certain person increase it becomes more interesting, and thus more of a topic for discussion offline. Yes, it is geeky, but we often talk about funny tweets, poignant emails, and annoying vloggers.
Do you have any rules to avoid cheating online? Do you think that it is something that couples should be more concerned about?
What do you do when you feel like you finally know what to do with your life? When you know how to really live, how to change things and be the person you want to be? What do you do when you know exactly who you want to be… the new you?
I know who I want to be. There is not a particular career or identity that I want. What I want is to be holy. I want to love and give with the grace that comes only when one clings to nothing.
I do not want to live in the privileged world that allows me to think that my problems are oh-so-important. I do not want to say “I can’t afford that luxury” because I am spending my time and money on different pleasures while others go without clean water.
Some days it seems as if this person whom I want to be may really be. There is hope and freedom and an asceticism which is far too delicious to be called self-denial. I am so caught up in the beauty of what may be that it seems that it really is me and that I will live well. It will be a good life!
And so I follow Tolstoy’s efforts with the attention of one who reads her own story:
He regarded the reforming of economic conditions as nonsense, but he had always felt the injustice of his abundance as compared with the poverty of the people, and he now decided that, in order to feel himself fully in the right, though he had worked hard before and lived without luxury, he would now work still harder and allow himself still less luxury. All this seemed so easy to do that he spent the whole way in the most pleasant dreams. With a cheerful feeling of hope for a new, better life, he drove up to his house between eight and nine in the evening.
And find to my chagrin that it is indeed my story.
[...]When he saw it all, he was overcome by a momentary doubt of the possibility of setting up that new life he had dreamed of on the way. All the traces of his life seemed to seize hold of him and say to him: ‘No, you won’t escape us and be different, you’ll be the same as you were” with doubts, an eternal dissatisfaction with yourself, vain attempts to improve, and failures, and an eternal expectation of the happiness that has eluded you and is not possible for you.’
As long as I am eating only lentils and split peas and going to sleep early on a hard floor it seems quite easy for me to live well. But just add back in a little internet and ice cream. Give me bookshelves and bring out the dehydrator and make me feel at home. Suddenly I am only a step away from a microwave and ipod and wii and all those things which seem so normal and necessary. After all, everyone else has one. It is not like it is even cutting edge indulgence. And it is not as if I can see the people who die because of my choices.
And when I no longer see those whom I could love I no longer see the me I want to be. All I feel is the me who is here now; the one who prefers to drive rather than to take the bus, the one who is too lazy to possibly help you achieve the new you.
Why, oh why, must self-indulgence come at the cost of heaven on earth? Hope has a bitter taste when it is a replacement for goodness hear and now.
I used to have a rule for books made into movies: I would never watch the movie until I had read the book. It was that simple. So I watched The Fellowship of the Ring but still have not seen The Two Towers or The Return of the King because I only ever made time to read the first book.
It sounds like a good, upstanding book geekish sort of rule, but in reality… well, it has not served me well. I get to shape my own views of the characters without being unduly influenced by some movie. And that lofty independent view means that I get to be routinely disappointed by movies.
While hunting for movie clips for an upcoming Anna Karenina post I was horrified by some of the movie versions. They were utter failures at capturing the wonder of Tolstoy’s world. They had none of the subtlety and bittersweetness of the words I read.
And then it hit me. I could be enjoying a perfectly good movie, except for the fact that I ruined it by reading the book.
So now I am rethinking my standard. Perhaps I should watch movies first and then be pleasantly surprised by the additional depth of the book.
Do you have a general rule for dealing with books made into movies?
For happiness. I know that it is fleeting. I know that you cannot depend on it, much less shape your life around it. But I still like it and am thankful for it.
For shoes. I am not a “shoe” person. I do not own that many pairs. But I do have a high appreciation for the functionality of the shoe. And I really would not want to have to walk on hot pavement without them.
For Anna Karenina. Even though I have only gotten through the first page of the book with blog posts I have really enjoyed what I have read so far (though I am closer to 1/8th of the way through the book than 1/4th). I love Tolstoy. I don’t care if I would have hated him in person or passionately disagreed with many of his ideas. I love his writing.
For blueberries. I had to check back to make sure I haven’t said this before, but I am so thankful for blueberries. My mother apparently ate a quart the night before she went into labor with me, and clearly that made an impact.
For childhood friends. They are the best. Enough said. Or maybe not, but Anna Karenina does mention the subject so maybe it will get its own post.
For watermelon. I don’t actually care about it, but it makes Josh so ridiculously happy. And then he leaves the blueberries to me.
For you. Especially those of you who comment and encourage me with my gratitude lists.
I have previously thought about encouraging others to write thankful lists of their own (I mean c’mon, lots of you write lists of random things every Friday!) but decided not to for one reason or another. Well, I am breaking that today since I am once again pushing Real Zest. I know, I know, deal with it.
Please consider posting a list of 7 things you are thankful for on your blog, linking to it on Real Zest and you could win a $100 gift card for Zappos! And if you’re feeling nice you could comment to let me know that you did so. I won’t give you anything for it except the knowledge that you made me feel all warm and cuddly. But not fuzzy. Because who really wants to feel fuzzy unless you’re a guy who doesn’t like shaving?
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Thus begins Anna Karenina with one of Tolstoy’s most famous lines. Ignoring what I know of the rest of Tolstoy’s work, it makes me think that perhaps all families are different, and thus each must be unhappy in its own way.
But thinking of every family as unhappy in its own way is depressing, even if true to some extent.
So I contemplate the flip side. What if we are all striving for the same thing in familial happiness? We may think that our dreams look so very different (you with your exec husband and large summer house on the beach and me with my little garden and husband who is always home for dinner) but perhaps they are the same to the extent that they actually make us happy.
For wooden floors. I hate vacuuming more than any other household chore, and now I do not have to do it (or feel guilty about making Josh do it) for the foreseeable future.
For the availability of multiple daily masses and reconciliation. It is so much easier to get to Church when there are options!
For good books. Add in time to read, and I’m not sure that I can complain about anything.
For no feeling of dread at the thought of the end of summer. This summer has been a lot tougher than last financially, but so, so, so much happier. I am alive.
