Practice plus Feldenkrais makes amazing.
Nothing to do with story following.
Is that true? Read and decide for yourself.
Ciao.
BAD DAY
Fred Fur is having a bad day. His brother Billy was scared off the pathway last night by a car. A rabbit driven car, of course, since if Billy had been on one of the human roads most likely he would have been run over and then Fred Fur would feel bad, but a different kind of feeling bad than he feels today.
Today the feeling is frustration. Today the feelings is a little bit angry, though, Fred likes to hide from knowing that it is anger and he calls it “upset.” This is a habit he got as a young rabbit (notice the rhyme, which happens all the time with rabbits and their habits, which is why they get into so much trouble), when over and over his mother, Matilda Fur would glare at him with eyes burning, and would have a tense mouth that looked not ready to eat carrots and celery and other delicious and nutritious food, but looked ready to chop bamboo down to the ground, Matilda would look at him with all this furry in her fury face, and tap her foot was if to knock a ten foot hole in the ground and say, just sort of screaming: “I’m getting upset at you, Fred. Very upset.”
What Fred knew then, and still knows now (Matilda being up and about and on her twelfth set of rabbit little ones since Fred) was that “very upset” meant ‘shift your behavior quickly or Mama is going to blow her stack and start screaming and throwing things.’
So actually, Fred learned too things: the big rabbits pretended they weren’t angry by calling it upset. And that anger/ upset was a weapon to push little rabbits into place if they didn’t do what they are told.
Bummer.
Anyway, Fred was frustrated and quote upset unquote not that his brother Billy was shoved off the pathway last night by an unsafe and stupid driving young rabbit in one of the way too many rabbit cars that had become the latest craze in rabbitdoms attempt to be as crazy and hurried and harried as the human race (and what were they racing toward anyway?), but Fred was frustrated and quote upset unquote by Billy’s response to this incident.
For Fred was a wise young rabbit, pursuing his PHD ( Pursuit of Happiness Degree), and he had learned a thing or two. And one of these things or two that he had learned was that it wasn’t the random stupid stuff that other rabbits did (ignore you, call you names, forget to come to a party they had said they’d come to, tell lies and so on), but it was the individual rabbits response to this bad stuff that was the cause of unhappiness.
“Listen to me, Billy. It happens all the time. The car rabbits and driving wilder and weirder and faster all the time. If you let it get you angry, then they are controlling you in a certain way.” ( Fred was quite clear about anger in others. With him, though, he got upset. Quote unquote.)
“Stop that nonsense , Brother,” shouted Billy, who was angry and didn’t mind being called angry. “These fools need to be taught a lesson.”
“They need to stop driving so fast and so carelessly.”
“They need to be punished.”
“Oh, Billy. How can you think that way? Do you like to be punished?”
“Of course not, but when I do stupid and harmful things I should be punished.”
“Can you absolutely know that this is the truth?” asked Fred.
“Don’t try to trick me with thinking clearly. I’m angry now and I want to do something and what I want to do is invent a bigger and meaner car and mow down all those stupid rabbits in their quick little cars.”
“And then what will you have?”
“Satisfaction.”
“And what of all the hurt rabbits that fall victim to your anger and your big car.”
“It will serve them right for pushing me off the road.”
“But how many cars pushed you off the road.”
“At least three.”
“And how will you know the right three to punish? Even if punishment worked, which you said you can’t be absolutely sure that it is true that it does.”
“I don’t care about truth. I just want to act out my anger and get back at some drivers,” said Billy, being very truthful in that particular remark.
“And still, how do you know you’ll punish the right three.”
“I don’t care about right. I just want some action. Maybe I should get together with all the hotheaded rabbits who want to declare war on the badgers. They have a dictatorial leader, and they are hogging valuable land along the creek and in the meadow. Maybe we should liberate the badgers and get back the meadow while we are at it.”
“You are crazy, Billy. You just want some sort of crashing around.”
“Sure. I’m frustrated. This is what everyone does when they are frustrated.”
“We aren’t neurotic housepets to humans, Billy.
We aren't, shudder to think of it, humans with their pave over nature and bomb out your enemy approach.
We are civilized.
We are rabbits.
We do things small and quite and we care for the Earth.”
“Ha. These new young drivers just care for their loud music and their fast cars. Though if I hadn’t heard the loud music I wouldn’t have jumped out of the path, and then I could have been really hurt.”
And so their talk had gone. Billy stays angry and full of plans. Fred stays frustrated and quote unquote upset.
La, la how the life goes on.
