My Thoughtless Son

No, this isn’t a post where I grip about my son.

Quite the opposite, in fact!

Sure, “My Son Who Has No Word-Based Thoughts,” might have been a more accurate title for this post, but it just doesn’t sound right.

My son is ten months old at the time of this writing and he hasn’t spoken his first word yet. He babbles, and a lot of it might sound like familiar words, but he’s not quite there yet.

That’s significant, because humans use words to create “intelligent” thoughts. He still thinks, of course, but not about the past or some imagined future. His thoughts are immediate reactions to the present.

He can cry and smile and laugh, all within seconds. He’s completely unbound by the past and unafraid of the future, both of which don’t even exist as a concept to him.

He doesn’t know his name, or sex, or color, or race, or age, or any of those labels humans attribute to themselves. He just exists. And he’s completely blissful in the simplicity of the present.

He smiles all the time. In fact, he’s been smiling in his dreams since he was a few days old. No judgment there, just the bliss of being.

Of course, all human beings come packaged with some basic programming. That programming can trigger “negative” reactions.

The automatic response to pain is an obvious one, but even something that tastes bad can trigger a reaction. There’s no judgment there, however. It’s more of a safety trigger than anything else.

For instance, I tried giving my son some antipyretic medication and he made the funniest disgusted expression I’ve ever seen. That’s instinct telling him he shouldn’t drink the fluid because it tastes bad and so it’s probably not good for him.

Naturally, he cries. He cries when he’s hungry, when he’s really tired, or when he hurts himself. He cries because there’s no other way to communicate.

But he’s not sad about breaking up with his girlfriend, about not getting into an Ivy-League college, losing his job, or any of the things that can bring older, more “mature” people to tears. People lost in the story about themselves. Stories about an individual; separate from everyone and everything else.

These stories and the associated misery they bring might eventually come to him, but only after he starts thinking with words. Words in their very nature create separation. A sense of you and me. Yours and mine. With word-based thought comes judgment and with judgment comes suffering.

For now, my son is free of all that.

He won’t remember these early months in his life. That kind of memory comes a year or two after the beginning of word-based thought. But perhaps some part of him will retain some sort of subconscious connection to these experiences. Perhaps he too will yearn for freedom from attachment to thought. Maybe he will one day use thought as a tool so that it serves him and not the other way around.

For now, everything he sees, hears, touches, feels, and smells surprises him and fills him with love and awe. Everything that we take for granted, he does not. Everything is beautiful to him.

He can make you happy with just a simple smile. It’s always genuine. Always full of love.

I feel the deepest gratitude for having the honor of being in the presence of this baby—the greatest teacher I have ever known.

Who has been your greatest teacher?

Please Don't Kill My Dogs

I don’t know what exactly my Golden Retriever, Mojo, did–I only heard about it after all the hysteria.

Mojo has a serious problem, see.

You know how Goldens are supposed to be this loving, docile breed? Well he certainly is loving, but only with people. With other animals he goes wild and becomes this ferocious beast.

Another dog in serious need of Caesar Milan. Who knows, maybe I’ll be on the next episode of the DOG WHISPERER.

Sushi, is Mojo’s older sister. She’s a mini-schnauzer, and the only trouble she gets into is chewing things up, peeing on the floor (we think out of spite, because she’s quite smart actually), and, of course, barking. Endless, unstoppable barking. But she’s a sweetheart, ask anyone.

Anyway, I’d made the mistake of leaving both dogs with this rather eccentric woman. She had a quant country house, and portrayed herself as this animal lover. She had birds. She was crazy about these exotic birds. They meant everything to her.

So you can guess what went down next, right? Mojo ate the birds.

Wrong. Actually, I don’t know what Mojo did, but I don’t think there were any birds left to eat after Sushi had made a meal out of each and every one of them.

It’s important I tell you we weren’t in the States when this happened. We were in France. They have different laws there. And none of this would have gone down in the States, I can assure of you that much.

How a plain-clothed policeman arrived at the scene so fast, I’ll never know. He was in charge and alone. I didn’t see his partner, if he had one.

The French cop didn’t identify himself. He didn’t even ask any questions. The lady was pointing frantically inside her house. Here eyes bulging out of her Pillsbury Doughboy face.

Moments later, he appeared with my dogs pulling at the leash. They might as well have been attached to a fire hydrant.  He shoved the dogs into the back seat of his Renault and was gone.

No doubt to “destroy” the dogs.

I don’t know how long the process would take in France. I mean, they weren’t going to simply pull out a gun and shoot the dogs in the head, right? I know here in the States, they kill animals instantly with a lethal dose of some poison chemical.

Images of Mojo and Sushi on a hard metal table with IV’s on their shaved legs plagued my mind.

I had to stop that guy, but I didn’t know where he’d taken my dogs, and there was no talking to the old lady. She was liable to euthanize my ass with her 12-gauge before I could get a word out of my mouth.

I jumped on a bus that seemed to be heading in the right direction, but I soon lost sight of the Renault. I got off as soon as I saw a taxi. It took forever to find the cop, but I finally did.

I held on to the impossible hope that my dogs were somehow still alive.

Up close, I could see the cop was a good six inches taller than me, and had one of those Ultimate Fighting faces, but without the cauliflower ears.

He told me the dogs were in holding, somewhere. He knew I was looking for them. He knew my plan to try and set them free. In fact, he had found me, not the other way around. I was wondering how the cabbie had managed to track the cop down.

The cop had a message. And it wasn’t subtle. If I wanted my dogs back alive, I’d have to pay him. He wouldn’t tell me the exact amount—in fact, he wouldn’t even give me a ballpark figure. It was as though bribery rates were common knowledge in this country.

I knew if I pressed the issue, I could end up pissing him off, and then it would be game over for both Mojo and Sushi. So I decided to ask around. I finally came across a dog lover. She had a diamond large enough to buy a small country, and she said she’d gladly give it to me to save the dogs, but it was probably already too late.

I was confused. Didn’t the cop want money?

She explained to me that he was notorious in these parts for being impatient.

In a panic, I ran back to the lobby and looked for the cop, but he had vanished. Surely a diamond the size of a doorknob would be enough—

There was a banging sound, like someone knocking at the door with his fists.

I rushed to the kitchen, and of course, there they were: Mojo and Sushi. Alive, happy, and wondering what business I had disturbing their nap.

Sometimes dreams are like that—an awful experience, as real and immediately painful as a kidney stone, but when you wake up to “reality,” suddenly the pain is gone. Everything makes sense and in an instant is right again.

Glimpses of liberation from thought have a similar quality. From that perspective, looking back at life, all else seems like a silly nightmare.