Reigning Cats and Dogs

I am not a ‘cat’ person. I am not a ‘dog’ person. I like them both equally.

Dogs love you no matter what. One of my favorite Far Side cartoons shows a bunch of Vikings coming back to the boat after pillaging (and god knows what else!) a village. In the foreground of the picture is a dog secured to the docked Viking ship, with his tail wagging vigorously; happy to see his master even if his master happens to be an efficient blood thirsty killing machine.

Years ago we had a dog that came to us as a puppy. I used to hold him in my arms like a baby and rub his puppy belly while he dropped off to sleep. Fast forward a few years and the former puppy weighed almost 100 pounds yet he still thought he could crawl into my lap for a relaxing belly rub. Till the day he died, he thought he was my baby and that was sweet. It made me feel all warm and gooey inside.

Cats, on the other hand, keep me humble. I live for their pleasure, entertainment and convenience. They keep me on my toes. I’m never really sure that they like me (and I *do* so want them to like me!)

There’s a great book I read called Felidae by a German author, Akif Pirincci written about 15 years ago, it’s a murder mystery set amongst the world of cats. It’s a clever, well written book. (I loaned to a girl I worked with named Stacey who never returned it....) One of the conventions I found amusing is that the cats in this book are generally pretty dismissive of the humans who purport to share their lives. We (people) are referred to, and not in a good way mind you, as “can openers”. That’s a hell of an image. Apparently this fellow has written a couple of more books featuring Francis, the lead
“cat-achter” (okay it sounds funnier then is looks written out like that) of Felidae and there’s also supposed to be a so-so German cartoon made from this book as well. If you can get your hands on the book, it’s a good read.

(Remember this warm and fuzzy side of me. The day will come when I’ll launch into rant about something and you will think I’ve lost my mind.)

Vision Is Hard Work

I am a plodding realist.

In my eulogy (which hopefully is far in the future) I doubt if anyone will refer to me as a visionary or an inspiring leader of men.

When I think about great men of vision, I think of people like Mohandas Ghandi, Thomas Jefferson, Jesus of Nazareth or Martin Luther King. Jefferson, Ghandi and King were master politicians. Jesus and King could move crowds with their oratory. I admire the idealists but I believe that it is the realists that make the idealists ideal a reality. The world’s greatest architect isn’t much without a construction crew. I am the eternal assistant, toiling behind the scenes to turn the blueprints into an edifice. I like being the guy who runs the crew.

I am proud to be a plodding realist because without the planners, marchers, sitters and signers, the idealists would be nothing but madmen shouting into the wind.

I can respect an idealist but I respect the idealists more who, within their lofty ideas, have the wisdom and ability to be realistic about what it will take to bring them to fruition. As much as I can’t imagine Christianity without the St Paul, think of all that work done by those 70 disciples deployed by Jesus. Think of how many miles those 35 pairs of people logged while Saul of Tarsus was helping stone St Stephen. Imagine the Civil Rights Movement without all of those bodies linking arms and singing “We Shall Overcome” or the American Revolution without the majors and captains who marshaled the soldiers and executed George Washington’s vision. Yeah, imagine.

Idealists might have the lofty goals but a lofty goal without a good anchor will just float away like a helium balloon (Look at the experiments in utopian societies in the 19th century.) For me a yin and yang thing is key. To dream is fine; to execute is good; to dream and then execute the dream is heaven.