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Inventing relationships

I wouldn't dream of taking one of my chooks to the vet, and I never have, but on Saturday I took my family's rabbit, Raspberry, for a rather urgent consultation. Raspberry was lethargic and obviously ill, and he won't be returning home other than in spirit. The cost was a very reasonable $48, and I'm pleased that I spent it to spare Raspberry's suffering, but why have I never even considered whizzing an off-colour chook to the vet?

Because I invented a relationship with the rabbit when I have never invented a relationship with a chook. My image of the rabbit was something other than merely a rabbit while each of the hundreds of chooks I've owned has always been merely a chook. Of course the rabbit remained a rabbit despite being embellished by my imagination, and it wasn't so much the rabbit as a figment of my imagination that cost me $48 on Saturday.

The same applies to my cat, Tilly. My relationship with her is my invention, and as someone pointed out so cruelly on this blog a few months ago, my cat would eat me if she could.

In the same way, I write in my column in The Herald today, we invent celebrities and a relationship with them, when we're in love we are in love with an invention, a concoction of wishes. Yes, there is a person called Nicole Kidman just as there was a rabbit called Raspberry, but the rest is pretty much our invention. We even invent reciprocity.

Dogs? Man's best friend? We ascribe highly unlikely motives to the dog's association with us because the motives are more attractive to us, when the truth is very likely to be that the dog sees its owner as the meal provider. My wife's poodle has been overjoyed to see me of a morning since I started giving her a small treat as I emerged from the house, and before the treats she wouldn't get off her bed to greet me.

I'll admit that I started giving her a treat on the insistence of my wife and a daughter, who were unhappy that I'd take Raspberry a peeled and quartered apple and a carrot warmed in hot water while ignoring the dog. Naturally Raspberry would hop over to greet me as I arrived with apple and carrot and I'd be thrilled by this confirmation of our special bond.

It hurts, but are you, too, prepared to admit that your relationship with your cat, your spouse, your god is a figment of your imagination?

Posted By: Jeff Corbett on 26/10/2009 4:59:00 PM | Comments (35)

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Sorry Jeff, but both my cat and my spouse are sentient beings - my relationships with them are entirely real. Most celebrities are not sentient beings, therefore any "relationship" a fan may have with Michael Jackson or similar is entirely imaginary. Don't underplay your relationship with Rasberry the rabbit - chances were that rabbit was a better class of person than most people. BTW: My cat wouldn't eat me, he's far too discerning.

Posted by Scott Hillard, 27/10/2009 9:09:38 AM

I'm surprised, Scott, that you haven't shot your cat! Even if just for practice.

Posted by Jeff Corbett on 27/10/2009 9:19:56 AM

Well Jeff my chook that died of egg binding was the standout personality of the pen. She was a leghorn commercial pullet but was the boldest forager, up first, last to bed ,never went broody and laid continuously for 4 years. She endured two winters with a bare bum(never grew back after moulting) I was very fond of her.I can tell you -sitting on our front lawn with glass in hand in the late afternoon watching the chooks hurtle around catching those African black beetles -they are most amusing company. I always wanted chooks poking around in the orchard-looking at them enjoying their lives imparts a deep sense of contentment--the thisness of now-if you want to be Buddhist about it.BTW ,egg-bound chooks look really lethargic fairly suddenly and they get dirty whitish soiled vents and take really slow high steps. Its a funeral march in my experience -they are doomed whatever you do.

Posted by Snooze, 27/10/2009 9:10:37 AM

On the lawn with glass in hand late afternoon would be more fun, snooze, if you had a rooster.

Posted by Jeff Corbett on 27/10/2009 9:18:28 AM

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - from Hamlet. Everything is imaginary Jeff and we are all ultimately just food for worms. I am vegetarian because I do not wish to eat from the proceeds of another's suffering, whereas meat-eaters do not share the same mental connection I do. And EVERYONE is an atheist to some extent - they each just believe in one god too many. Zeus/Thor/Isis was as real to earth inhabitants 2000 years ago as a carpenter's son is now to some (ok, many). All in the head.

Posted by Old Will, 27/10/2009 9:20:30 AM

Are you an existentialist, Old Will?

Posted by Jeff Corbett on 27/10/2009 9:30:49 AM

Jeff - I think in a blog last week you asked (Abundance?) if he was extistentialist - no doubt you attract a more liberally thinking audience. I am amused by the "relationship" the great hordes have with 'god' - they bang on non-stop about their 'relationship with jesus" etc. There is a great bumper sticker: "I gave myself to Jesus. *cry* And he never calls or writes!"

Posted by Old Will, 27/10/2009 9:37:27 AM

I don't recall asking any other blogger that, OW. But last week might be too long ago! Yes, the relationship with Jesus is wondrously inventive.

Posted by Jeff Corbett on 27/10/2009 9:41:44 AM

White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you Don't do anything at all Go ask Alice When she's ten feet tall And if you go chasing rabbits And you know you're going to fall Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar Has given you the call Call Alice When she was just small

Posted by timothy leary, 27/10/2009 9:42:52 AM

From time to time I've been asked if I would eat my cat to fend off post-apocalyptic starvation. The answer is, of course, no - however I would happily feed other humans to my cat. Cats, unlike smackies/ thieves/ Greens voters/ etc are sentient beings and therefore to be protected and cultivated.

Posted by Scott Hillard, 27/10/2009 9:50:30 AM

Sorry Jeff, it was to Directeur Sportif re. Men and Roosters on 22/10/09, "Are you feeling existential today, DS?" - re. DS asking another if he was a figment of your imagination. Here's a gag for you: "Old ducky goes into a paint shop and asks for some Lemon Yellow paint, that she saw in the shop last week. Paint seller says: 'Sorry lady, we have never sold that kind of paint." Old ducky replies: "Nevermind, it must have just been a pigment of your imagination."

Posted by Old Will, 27/10/2009 10:11:50 AM

"woman may be able to fake orgasms, but men can fake whole relationships". James Shubert

Posted by Perspective, 27/10/2009 10:23:21 AM

As expected I messed up that gag - "your" (imagination) should read "my". Don't ya HATE THAT! Rule No. 1 with joke telling broken - only tell a joke if you know it cold. I am worse than a dyslexic agnostic insomniac who wakes up at night and asks: 'Is there a dog?"

Posted by Old Will, 27/10/2009 10:39:51 AM

I'm with you Scott, my cat and I have a definite relationship; one where I supply all the necessities of life including a comfy lap to sleep on in front of the TV and she promises not to stink, slobber all over me, dig up the yard, stink, bark at someone walking 2 blocks away, bite the neighbour's children, stink, crap all over the lawn while digging it up and be generally needy and neurotic. You could go as far to say its more of a symbiosis than a relationship per se.

Posted by The Tortieness of Nawtiness, 27/10/2009 11:38:46 AM

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