Wisdom Of Wolves

Each and every wolf has a story to share. Can we be trusted to listen? In a time when humans are wantonly and brutally exploiting wolves and numerous other nonhuman animal beings, it is essential that we pay very close attention to what they are saying to us as they try to adapt to a world in which their interests are far too often and universally trumped “in the name of humans.” It’s pretty simple: We rule, other animals have to do what we want them to do or they suffer the consequences of our narrow and anthropocentric demands that seriously compromise their well-being and their very lives.

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Their lives and behaviors mirrored our own contradictions and complexities: social hierarchy tempered by compassion, contention mixed with cooperation, the admirable side by side with the abhorrent. Among all their qualities there were many we admired, but one stands out more than any other, especially considering all that has befallen them at the hands of man. Wolves can forgive. 

- Jim Dutcher, The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons From the Sawtooth Pack

And of course, the book which is so close to my heart is Brenin and his life with Mark Rowlands captured beautifully in The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness.

What John Gray wrote about Mark's relationship with Brenin is pretty much how Max opened doors for me which I never knew existed - all that without language.

The Philosopher and the Wolf is a powerfully subversive critique of the unexamined assumptions that shape the way most philosophers - along with most people - think about animals and themselves. When Rowlands bought a wolf cub for $500, and lived with it for eleven years, he ended up writing: 'Much of what I learned, about how to live and how to conduct myself, I learned during those eleven years. Much of what I know about life and its meaning I learned from him. What it is to be human: I learned this from a wolf.' 

A part of Rowlands's life with Brenin was sheer delight: 'The wolf is art of the highest form and you cannot be in its presence without this lifting your spirits.' Beyond its beauty, though, the wolf taught the philosopher something about the meaning of happiness. Humans tend to think of their lives as progressing towards some kind of eventual fulfilment; when this is not forthcoming they seek satisfaction or distraction in anything that is new or different. This human search for happiness is 'regressive and futile', for each valuable moment slips away in the pursuit of others and they are all swallowed up by death. In contrast, living without the sense of time as a line pointing to an end-point, wolves find happiness in the repetition of fulfilling moments, each complete and self-contained. As a result, as Rowlands shows in a moving account of his last year with Brenin, they can flourish in the face of painful illness and encroaching death.

How Brenin made Mark a better person:

If we humans place a disproportionate weight on motives, then to understand human goodness we must strip away those motives.  When the other person is powerless, you have no self-interested motive for treating them with decency or respect.  they can neither help you or hinder you.  You do not fear them, nor do you covet their assistance.  In such a situation the only motive you can have for treating them with decency and respect is a moral one: you treat them this way because that is the right thing to do. And you do this because that is the sort of person you are. 

But when I remember Brenin, I remember also that what is most important is YOU that remains when your calculations fail – when the schemes you have schemed shudder to a halt, and the lies you have lied stick in your throat. In the end, it’s all luck – all of it – and the gods can take away your luck as quickly as they confer it. What is most important is the person you are when your luck runs out.

Max is not with me now but he was and will always be my impartial spectator - calling my own bullshits and navigating to do the right thing.

I am grateful that I came across and read about Brenin and Mark when Max was little. I think, that helped me to live with him enjoying each moment as "complete and self-contained" in itself and enjoying those moments for what it was. And I will continue saying until my last breath:

'Much of what I learned, about how to live and how to conduct myself, I learned during those thirteen years. Much of what I know about life and its meaning I learned from Max. What it is to be human: I learned this from my Max.'