Never Give Up

A baby giraffe falls 10 feet from its mother’s womb and usually lands on its back. Within seconds, it rolls over and tucks its legs under its body. From this position it considers the world for the first time. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces her offspring to the reality of life. In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a newborn giraffe learns its first lesson.

The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits for about a minute, and then does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby, so it’s sent sprawling head over heels.

When it doesn’t get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts.  Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs.

Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing.  She kicks it off its feet again.  Why?  She wants it to remember how it got up.  In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with the herd, where there is safety.  Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all enjoy young giraffes. If the mother didn’t teach her calf to get up quickly, it’d be vulnerable to these predators.

The late Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin. Stone was once [Read more]

See the Connection, Not the Differences

There is a famous story about Charles Darwin hiking through the countryside in England with his friend:

“There’s an abundance of clover here,” observed Darwin. “This district must have many widows.” The two strolled on, Darwin enjoying the country air, his friend lost in deep contemplation. At last, the friend tugged the great scientist’s sleeve. “What has clover to do with widows?” he asked. Darwin smiled and explained, “An abundance of clover needs many healthy swarms of bees to pollinate it. Thriving bee hives mean there are few rats to raid and ravage them. A scarcity of rats spells an abundance of cats. Who keeps and feeds packs of cats? Widows, of course.”

In Buddhism there is a principle known as Pratityasamutpada. Its most literal translation is the together rising up of things. What this means, essentially, is that all things are interdependent. Each individual person, place, or thing in the world is the result of a collaborative process and a combination of many interrelated elements. Buddhism sets forth that a large part of our unhappiness comes from our failure to grasp this concept of Pratityasamutpada. Instead of seeing ourselves as interdependent and in relation to all things, we see ourselves as separate, and we set up belief systems that maintain and enforce this fallacy of thought. I am fascinated by the way people have historically communicated using various symbols. A fun place to visit if you are ever in Las Vegas is the King Tut museum. Museums of ancient history such as this consistently demonstrate the symbols that different cultures have used throughout history to communicate. Whether you look at the pyramids in Egypt, the cave paintings in France or in rural parts of the United States, prehistoric art in China–or elsewhere–ancient cultures have all used similar symbols. One of the most dominant symbols that different peoples have used is an animal with wings; this particular symbol is often worshiped. It could be a winged bull, winged snake, winged horse, or winged dragon. Regardless of the particulars, this image appears throughout various cultures time and time again. The idea of animals (other than birds) having wings seems to be celebrated by virtually all civilizations. Wings are symbolic of freedom. They represent becoming something powerful, unique, and enlightened. Having wings seems to elevate a creature to an almost godlike status, whereby it is empowered to break free from all limitations. In addition to appearing in prehistoric art, winged creatures also appear as the subject of numerous myths throughout various cultures. In many of these myths, an animal (or sometimes a person) goes into isolation and emerges with wings. In other stories, such as the legend of the phoenix, a bird dies in a fire, and from the ashes emerges a new, revitalized phoenix. All of these ancient symbols seen in art and mythology represent the process or journey of transformation that is undertaken by all forms of life. Most of us have an innate desire to transform ourselves. We believe that deep down there is something that is imperfect with us, which can be made better–and we want to rise above the world and our conditions within it. Because our desire to experience transformation is so important to us, it is something that we should honor. The idea of becoming something better and more significant than we are is valued by all people. At the same time, the need to transform, escape, and rise above seems inconsistent with our general concept of happiness. [Read more]