Fear Limitts Freedom

In Japanese there is a four character phrase describing how both my cat and and I live within the boundaries of fear.

Doubtful heart, dimly lit devil.  

疑心暗鬼  (Ishin, anki)

Japanese groups to  prevent rampant reproduction of strays successfully promotes raising pet cats indoors.  To my American sensibilities, a cat without an outdoors life is only half alive.  If I were an indoor cat, I might become neurotic.  That is, my delusion of course.

OUR KITTY IS LIMITED BY FEAR
So our kitty has been raised to run like a trolly car along a wire crossing our backyard.  Since she was a kitten, this child of a stray cat has lived within the limits of this cultural compromise.  Now that she has reached her adult size, she weighs enough to be trained to an American high tech electric fence.

Here is how the fence works.  If she comes near the wire, first she hears a beep and then if she crosses the wire, she receives the lowest setting of the shock from the special collar.  Yesterday she crossed the wire once and since then she has been spooked by any part of the yard where she can hear the beeping.  So, training her was very easy.

We feel pity for her.  Out of fear, today she stays close to the house when she is wearing the electric fence collar.  She does not know that we are burying a wire or that her area of freedom is much wider than the shadow of our house where she crouches today. Of course, she doesn't know that we fear the criticism of neighbors who do not like cats, so we cannot let her wander like an American cat.  Like Pavol's dog, she reacts to punishment without understanding how or why she is shocked.  She had only one experience of a shock but has heard the beeping several times when we brought her near the danger zones.  Although her freedom has actually increase, this new freedom is not evident to her.  Interestingly, when we attach her leash to the clothesline, she runs after imaginary prey without any evidence of fear.



UNSEEN BOUNDARIES ON HUMAN FREEDOM
Allow me to use this situation as a metaphore for our emotional and mental life.  Like my poor fearful kitty, we have all been shocked at some point and we remember that fear.  In many cases, we do not remember the situation that caused that fear to arise.  Like my kitty, we do not understand the underlying dynamics of our situation.  This is because our metaphysical life has no concrete form.  So like my kitty, we live crouched within narrow boundaries as if there were an electric boundary buried in the ground of our lives.  We do not understand why, where or what sets off the shock.  We only remember a painful memory.  Like my poor kitty, many of us crouch within what appear to be the safe limits of our lives.



Of course, there are rash insensitive individuals who are more like a big strong dog.  These types need a stronger shock to even remember fear.   Whether they understand the underlying situation better my kitty is not clear to me.

Tomorrow, I will play with my kitty outside the shadow of the house.  No doubt, she will see that she is safe where we play.  Likewise, perhaps the more sensitive among us wait  for the playful hand of love and adventure to draw us out of our fears.  Living the full freedom that is differently alotted to each us is a basic form of homework for each individual.