Okay folks. You'll have to forgive me for this one. First off, it's quite a bit longer than I usually post. Secondly, it's a lot more "deep" than I usually post as well.

This is yet another chapter from my dissertation, written back in 1996, for my PhD in Counseling (and the PhD in Motivational Studies). Yes, I know. I'm a geek. I admit it. I have 2.75 doctorates. I'm weird.

Anyway, this is right out of there, so some of it might not make a whole lot of sense, as there's no "background information" to go on. Forgive me for that. I post it here for several reasons:

1) I think there's a lot of good stuff here worth thinking about.

2) I have been negligent (for about three days now) in sending the "Immutable Laws" portion to Sir Kaine, and so need to remedy that. :)

And 3) I think that some of the things here, especially the "Immutable Laws" might be something that everyone that's followed my incessant babbling here on FA might find to be though-provoking.

So without further ado, here it is. I would most certainly appreciate your comments, should you have any.

Most Sincerely and Respectfully Submitted,
NeonHyperSpastiKitty

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Chapter 21 - “The Journey of Life: Where Are You Today?”

“Life is more than simply existing, or a state of being.
Is it a time to live to the extent of your abilities: your
gifts. To let the exuberance and vitality of life consume
you. And when Death would come to take you, do not
have regret that you will die. Rejoice that you had
chance to live! Regret only that you were not immortal:
that you could not be a reminder of the very essence
of life forever. I strive to be this, and this only.”
- Felis Concolor
a.k.a. The Cougar

People might call it daydreaming. Perhaps they are right. Who’s to say? To me, it is simply taking a moment - or many - to reflect. My curse gives me the means, from time to time, to look back upon the journey of my life. I have a strange map in my head: something I’ve somehow filled in along the way. It shows me where I’ve been. It shows all the “way points”, all the direction changes, all the companions that have traveled with me, for however short or long that particular journey lasted. Life is not a single thing. It is simply journey after journey after journey. It is not even partly a destination. It is motion: movement towards a new beginning. Movement towards yet another journey.
If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it’s that those “companions”, were there, at those moments in your life, when you needed them most. But, isn’t it strange, that at the time, you may not see it that way? And isn’t it odd that the hindsight of the journey’s pathways are always so clearly marked. And it is then we see how our companions have helped us along the way.
Is it fate, that we can only see after it’s too late? Is it fate, that our discovery of need, or want, is after they are gone forever? Is it fate, that in the one moment, or hour, or year, that they may touch our lives, that they will unalterably change it forever? I ponder these things still. I may forever.
I have had but a very few companions: people or beings that I would call “friend”. But in their moments, when they were part of my life, my journey, each one touched me, helped me to reach yet another state of being, “place” of mind, and purpose. Each one, whether in a small or large way, altered the direction of my life forever. I do not know whether to simply accept, to thank, to curse, to mourn, or to simply be in awe. Why did they choose me? Or did fate do that for them? Was it bizarre luck? Happenstance?
Isn’t it strange how things just seem to happen? All the people, all the places, all the events just seem to mystically line up, and suddenly, you’re in the middle of this outrageous thing, that just shouldn’t be happening, but is. Something that you never thought, even in a millennia, could happen outside of your imagination. But here it is. You take a breath. Pinch yourself. Touch a tree, a wall, something, anything that might have substance, so that you can check your place in reality. Is all this real? Or has some strange force of the universe somehow taken the thoughts and images of your mind, and brought them to vivid and screaming, vibrant life? Can you handle all this at once? The mind goes into overload. And then, as suddenly as they all appeared, everything is gone. Done. Swept away into the currents, maybe torrents, of time.
Would you go back, if you could? Would you journey back to those times in your life all over again, even knowing the outcome? Would you live them all over?
Strange questions, aren’t they? A part of you would say, “Yes!”. No restraint. No hesitation. Simply to be there and experience the excitement, the emotions, once again. Yet another part would scream “No!”. A reaction. A warning. Because that time of your life was a mental struggle to survive as well. To live it again would mean you would have to face the same trauma, the same frustration, the same pain, the same anger, and the same anguish, all over again as well. You survived once, but would you a second time? Would you overcome the hurdles again? Would you make it through unscathed, traveling down the same past road yet again?
So this is our quandary: the paradox. Do we simply go on, knowing that we have learned something from these past journeys, or do we dwell on those moments from a long or maybe short time ago, to remember the happiness and joy that we held in our hands for just a moment. That we reached out to, and touched. And that for a fleeting, passing moment, we were secure.
But how about my question? It never was as simple as “yes” or “no”, was it?
The cold reality is, you can’t go back. In fact, you will never live those moments again, even with similar circumstance and similar event. You will never again view the universe with the same awe and wonder and innocence, because you have grown. You have altered. Changed. There is only memory, and you will never feel the same way ever again. But this is not bad. For as I said, life is forever a series of starting and completing journeys. So though we can never live the same journey again, we can live another. The feelings will not be the same. They will be different. New. Unique. And the friends that you have, the companions, may be there for you yet again. Or you will find new ones along the way.
As I have said, I have had some good friends. Friends to last a lifetime. I will never forget them, though many of them are no longer part of my journeys. Alas, many of them exist only in my memories.
To Krystofer Knoxin, I owe my very life. He was my guardian, and my protector. He taught me how to live and survive in a cruel, cold, and hateful world. The street was my classroom. The people on it, my instructors. I learned more than I ever thought possible about life. I owe that to him. But the streets were a mean and hostile place, and he had taken me there. He had gotten me onto the street, and eventually, he made it his goal, to get me off them as well. I like to think he succeeded. But “Once a street kid, always a street kid.”, and I will never forget the lessons and “rules” I learned there.
Krys taught me what I have come to call “The Immutable Laws”. There are three of them. There is a fourth, but it is slightly different. Not so immutable.
One) “You cannot change anyone.” No matter how hard you try, or how much energy you put into someone - or something, for that matter - you cannot change them. They change because they want to change. Or need to change. But regardless, you cannot force it upon them. You can offer your hand. You can offer to show the way. But it is up to them whether they take that offered hand, and whether they follow you.
Two) “You have a finite time in which to touch someone’s life.” You've really only got one chance to touch someone’s life. Only the length of time you’re allowed to use it in, changes. It may be a week, a month, a year, or maybe only a minute, but in that time, you have to let them know they're going to make it, and that they have a reason to keep going and to never give up. And then you've done yer part. That's when you've done all you can. That's the time to say goodbye, and move on.
Three) “The time you have will have already expired, by the time you realize it.” This is the frustrating side of Law Two. There are moments as you become part of someone else’s journey, that you can see some real progress. If you care about that person, you tend to put that much more energy into them. And you keep putting energy into them. One day, you discover that you’re beating your head against a wall, and you stop and wonder why. Why, if you were making so much progress once upon a time, are you not now? Law Three. Your time has expired. You are done, whether you want to be or not.
And the fourth? It is the “Law of Futility”. There will come a time, where you simply have to accept, that you have done everything within your means and power to alter some piece of reality that surrounds you, and that it is time to just give up, and find a new focus for your energy. But don’t take the words “give up” as a “roll over and die”. That would be the same as “defeat”. The “give up” here is a “call it good”, a “this is the end of the line”, a “we’ve done the best we could, and it’s time to move on”. It’s an important law, but I cannot truly call it immutable. Not like the first three. Its limits are set by you. By your motivation, patience, ethics, and tolerances.
So Krys gave me those, and they are lessons - laws - that have carried me forward in my life.
To, Kevin Ashley, I owe my creativity and youthful perspective. And perhaps my open-mindedness. Life in general just seemed to overwhelm him, but he never stopped staring at it through his huge, saucer eyes. He never quit trying to take everything in and digest it, understand it, whether it was possible or not. He saw things through the prowess of youth and innocence of a child: an eternal fourteen-year-old. He was refreshing to me, because he could always see things differently than me. I was a cynic. I saw the bad. And it wasn’t that he couldn’t see that side of things, he just chose to see the good as well. He taught me that.
But I guess it was two-way. Kevin and I were really close, like big brother, little brother. He always seemed to think he had something to learn, which I guess he did, and for some reason I will never know or fathom, he chose me to be the one to teach it all to him.
To Thom Warner, who’s “pathways of life” have traveled both together, and apart from mine, for the entirety of our lives. We have been from best friends to worst enemies, from drinking buddies to partners in crime. We have lived through a lot together, traveled the world in our respective services, him Coast Guard, myself Navy, and through it all, have remained just and only friends. Good friends. Lifelong Friends. To him I owe perseverance and trust. For through our many differences, we never lost the trust we had in one another. Trust is everything.
And where are all these friends today?
Krys, as I have told, is dead. But his memories remain. They guide me, and his laws have made him immortal. For every time I teach and counsel, I do my best to teach those laws.
You were right Krys. Life is worth it! All of it! The good and the bad. The ups and downs. I will forever miss you. “Your friend for all time.”
Kevin’s mom and dad separated. It was good. It would keep them from killing each other one day. Kevin went with his mom to Southern California, and we have lost touch over the years. I wish I knew where he was today. It would be nice to see if he still has his view of the universe, or whether I corrupted him, and turned him into a cynic like myself.
Kevin, if I have, forgive me. I beg you. It is a big and overwhelming world out there, and I didn’t mean to teach you all the wrong things. There is good out there. And I don’t have to even look to find it anymore. I’m rooting for you, whatever you’re doing, wherever you are.
Thom too, is still around, and we’ve kept in touch. It has been hard, and admittedly we’ve gone through long moments of silence, and disappearances. But our friendship has withstood the weathers of time. It has tested true.
Thom, what can I say? “Thanks!” It seems like we’ve been though almost everything together. Maybe we have. A lifetime? Several of them? No regrets. I am glad to have you as my friend. I’m privileged.
And Shasta? Do I lump him in with all my “human” companions? You bet! But it was different somehow. As Krys said, so long ago, “He was inside.” That was all too true. Yes, it was friendship, but it was somehow different than that too.
How many people in your life, are you so comfortable with, that you would willingly let them peer into your very soul? Many? Any? And that isn’t meant as a slight against the human friends that I have shared and lived so much with. It is just different. I think, to understand that, you would simply have to have been a pet to some animal in your life. Whether it was a dog, or cat, or whatever, doesn’t really matter. It is a trust. But yet indescribably more than that. It is the knowledge that you have, that goes beyond logic, fact, and reason, and is more, a great faith that your “master” will protect you, with his life if necessary, for no other reason than because he chooses to, wants to, and does so because he loves you. That, in my feeble attempt with words, is why Shasta was inside.
People ask me what my fondest memory of Shasta is. I don’t have just one. I have come to cherish every memory I have, whether good or bad, frustrating or joyous, because they are all I have of that time. I have no pictures - I never needed them when I had a two-hundred-pound cat right next to me. And I had my vivid memories, that still play like video tapes in my head. But I can’t share those with people. I could a picture. I don’t even have the papers that I got that night in the envelope marked with my name. They were lost in the bureaucracies, right along with Shasta. The rope and the collar went with him, also now gone forever.
But wrestling with the hissing, growling cat, are my most vivid memories. Each was an adventure of its own, a struggle to survive, to gain the upper hand, to lose it, to try and gain it back. I never won him, as hard as I tried. But that didn’t matter. It simply brought reality into vivid perspective: that mankind is so small and insignificant, when compared to the absolute power and beauty and grace of nature. Shasta was my small slice of those things: of nature. Of life. Indeed, of the universe!
Even with Keith’s help, and John’s, and that judge’s, I never found Shasta. I like to think that he was placed in a facility somewhere, where he could at least run free, was well taken care of, and had a handler that maybe, at least cared about him. Most likely, he ended up at some zoo, forever trapped in the small confines of a cage, slowly dying simply for lack of room to run and romp and pounce and play. But I force myself to believe otherwise. Indeed, maybe delude myself. I can forever hope. Wish.
“It would’ve almost been better if he’d died,” Josh had said once. He was right. I didn’t know where Shasta was. He wasn’t alive, or dead, just somewhere in between. Lost. In limbo.
I kept in touch with John and Josh for a time. Like Josh had said when I first met him, having Kenti there was a comfort. I learned what he meant. I wrestled with Kenti many times after they took Shasta from me, but it wasn’t the same. While I never questioned Shasta’s strength and abilities, they and his size were more in proportion to my own. Kenti was just too big. With a single paw into my chest, he could take my breath away, or hold me immobile indefinitely. It was never much challenge for him, no matter how much of a fight I put up.
“Was it all worth it, Mick?” Josh had asked one day, as Kenti was crushing me into the grass after a rather one-sided wrestle match.
I thought about it. I thought hard.
I stared up into the amber eyes of the huge tiger. He looked down at me, in charge, in control, my life in his “hands”: nature’s. The way it always had been. Even with Shasta.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was. All of it.”
“Good,” he’d said, a little bit of a smile forming on his face. “Then there’s no regrets, and you can start getting over it.”
I have to wonder now if he chose those words specifically, or whether fate had acted once again. They were profound words. Words of futility. Words that said it was time to move on, to get on with my life. And that I could.
I didn’t see Josh much after that. But that was okay. He had helped me through the pain of that loss, and who better, than someone who had experienced himself, the same kind of loss.
It would be years before I would simply “accept”, but I was stable again. I had come to another junction in my life, a crossroads, where it was time to make another choice. Choose one new road or another. And I had chosen, and begun to travel. To simply move once again.
That didn’t mean the pain would go away. Even now, I still feel it. But it’s different now. I can truly say “No regrets”. I have even come to the point where I can take those many adventures, that period of my life from 20-Nov-84 to 22-Mar-86 - a year, four months, and two days - and write them down so they can be shared with the rest of humanity. Maybe this isn’t exactly what Josh was meaning when he said we needed to get fifty new people to wrestle with a big cat every day. But this is a start. It’s movement in the right direction. Or so I hope.
So my dear reader, if, while you were reading these pages, I got even one laugh as Shasta tackled Kevin in the hall, or a chill of excitement as I wrestled with Shasta in the park, a twinge of “oddness” as I did what I did to Shasta for the breeding program, or even a single tear as I fastened the collar around his neck or as he hugged me before he walked out of my life for eternity, then I have succeeded in my frail attempt to paint a picture for you: a mosaic of this memorable time of my life. And I am greatful that you chose to join me for this grand adventure. That you would choose to share in it with me. To feel it for yourself.
But what about the “battle”, you ask? Did it end there? No. The battle rages fourth even to this day, as it will for a long time to come. People still fight for the cougars. And the tigers. And the leopards and the many other species of animals that are endangered. And not just felines: all the predators that humanity seems so hell-bent on exterminating.
On many fields, the battle still rages on. There are the private battles of humanity against the predators of this world, where a farmer chooses to hunt and kill a wolf or cougar, not because the animal has harmed his livestock, but because it could. Prejudices permeate even our nursery rhymes - “Little Red Riding Hood” for example. This is the very substance that has taken the greatest direct toll on these creatures’ existence.
Will we win the battle? I don’t know. The breeding programs are still in place and doing their monumental tasks. Science is providing sufficient ammunition to keep the battle at a sometimes volatile stalemate. But the reality is that most likely, we will not. There are new problems that surface every day. And those new problems require new solutions, which are not always easy.
People move from the cities, to homes in “the country”, only to discover an “obnoxious” predator within their paradise. People don’t stop to think that the predator is not the cat or wolf or fox or coyote, and the paradise that has been invaded was never theirs! Nor is it now. The beasts were there first, and they have no where else to go. If we continue to take away their paradise, take their land, the battle will eventually be lost, regardless of what we do.
So what, if we keep them alive in zoos and reserves rather than having them simply vanish from existence? If we remove from them, all that gives them exuberance, vitality, and the very essence of life, we have killed them anyway. They will only suffer on, in a demented semblance of what we humans might choose to call “life”. All that will remain, will be hollow shells of the creatures that some of us once had the privilege - the adventure - of knowing. What loss! What a great and tragic loss! But it is not their loss. It is ours! Humanity’s!
I cannot begin to describe the feelings I had, to even just touch Shasta’s shoulder, and feel the ever-tense muscles underneath his thickly-furred hide. It was awesome! Simply awesome! And then there was Kenti. Every time he took me off my feet in something close to an all-out take-down-and-tackle, my only thought was that I didn’t stand even a semblance of a change against him. At more than four times my weight, it was usually over in a very short time. But what the hell... So what if he kicked my ass! It was still absolutely awesome! I was wrestling a full-grown, Bengal Tiger! Holy shit!
But those times are only memories now. I wish so much, I could give those feelings and emotions and thoughts to everyone I meet. I guess that too, is my frail attempt with these words and pages.
I fight on a different battlefield today. I no longer have Shasta, so I can’t participate directly in any kind of program like I once did. But I do have money. And I donate as much as I can every year, to breeding and conservation programs. When I am able, I volunteer time as well. I belong to zoological organizations and am a member of many “societies”. This is the roll I play now. This is my part of the battle. This is the place where I can still be a part, and maybe make a small difference. I can still try, even from a distance.
The battle is not won. But likewise, it is not lost. As long as there is hope, and the will, these creatures of our world might still survive.
Keep the hope with me. Stand and fight by my side. For once the Shasta’s and Kenti’s and Sarista’s of this world have perished, they will be gone forever. There will be no bringing them back. And the war will finally be over. And it will be lost. Forever. And all we will have left, will be a world devoid of life. Even we will be dead. We will simply exist. Our choice has always been simple, even if we didn’t realize it before. We can save them, or lie down and die with them.
Oh...I lied. Not everything will be gone. We’ll still have pictures. At least we’ll have those. But some of us will have memories. And mine will haunt me. Because even with all I did, I didn’t do enough, while I still had the chance.
How about you? Which will you have?