So shoot me! Shoot me now!

Is what I beg when it gets to be too much, a’ la Daffy Duck in ‘Rabbit Seasoning’.

Here’s the script, for the young or those who do not remember:

Bugs: It’s true, Doc; I’m a rabbit alright. Would you like to shoot me now or wait ’til you get home?

Daffy: Shoot him now! Shoot him now!

Bugs: You keep outta this! He doesn’t have to shoot you now!

Daffy: He does so have to shoot me now! [to Elmer] I demand that you shoot me now!

[Elmer raises his gun. As Daffy sticks his tongue out at Bugs, he is shot. Daffy walks back over to Bugs, gunsmoke pouring out of his nostrils]

Daffy: [to Bugs] Let’s run through that again.

Bugs: Okay.

Bugs: [deadpan] Would you like to shoot me now or wait till you get home.

Daffy: [similarly] Shoot him now; shoot him now.

Bugs: [as before] You keep outta this, he doesn’t have to shoot you now.

Daffy: [re-animated] Hah! That’s it! Hold it right there! [to audience] Pronoun trouble. [to Bugs] It’s not “he doesn’t have to shoot you now”, it’s “he doesn’t have to shoot me now”

[Pause]

Daffy: [angrily] Well, I say he does have to shoot me now!! [to Elmer] So shoot me now!

Elmer shoots Daffy again.

Well, anyway, you get the picture.

Now I won’t say it is getting to be too much these days; that would be too strong a description for my inner construction. But, within my life’s confusion (my ‘pronoun trouble’, if you will) there is a very interesting sort of layering effect at work, as if bug-wing-thin sheets of rice paper are settling atop each other. Each possesses a delicate pattern all its own, and the thin winter sunlight filters through every bit, creating a strange network. All at once chaos – and all at once a new born order.

Dare I say that even in the midst of all this confusion and pain (yes, pain) there is also indescribable beauty and vision? It almost seems blasphemous, to declare good in the depths of what seems to be nothing but bad. And yet. And yet.

I am so aware of a brilliant awakening, raw, bloodied, new. But it shines. It shines. Birth is not pretty. But it is miraculous.

A quick comment on how accepting one’s position as a student in this lifetime can ease even the most difficult transition. I am so grateful for the places in my life where I am as a newborn, uncarved, innocent, where I am open to the difficulties and rewards of humble education, and the compassion and care of wise teachers.

When the pain is great, perhaps even unbearable, I find comfort in the lesson of the experience. Sometimes it is scant comfort, indeed. But frequently it is the difference between moving on or asking the universe to, for heaven’s sake, shoot me now.

Thanks, Rob B, for your quote this week. I love you muchly.

“The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails.

You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies,

You may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, You may miss your only love,

You may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics,

Or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds.

There is only one thing for it then – to learn.

Learn why the world wags and what wags it.

That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”

~ by pands on February 5, 2008.