Love, Marriage, Family and Children - Part 6 - Biggest Enemy

So, I'm afraid to raise children, because I'm lazy? Maybe because I'm afraid to pass my unhealthy genes? My illnesses? Am I afraid to see a suffering child specially when the reason is me along?

Is it maybe because I met a partner who agreed to a partnership without children? Even though I really want to believe Love, I know it fades. I mean I believe love as a solid thing but the affection slowly fades. Is it evolved in that way to populate the gene pool with variety. Love and affection are initially there to make a couple go crazy and make children. But then children become a reason for them to hold on to each other. I've stayed almost 10 years married and I now know somethings are meant to be learnt by firsthand experience. I'm happy with the decisions I've made and I'm pretty sure that in a way or another, I'll end up being the same me. But I know many relationships would make the offspring varied. Not my problem though.

What drives people to keep reproducing? Whatever it is, it is always a winner.

If you don't have children, you should be on alert for another thing. Make yourself busy. Occupy your mind in something. Otherwise, the boredom will make you go nuts. Usual days with your partner might make you want to get out of the same routing and would end up damaging the relationship. So, you must maintain a 'happening' life.

Some people make kids and say that they wanted kids just for the sake of their lust of having kids. They don't expect the kids to look after them when they are old so basically, they are just parents with no regrets. They just make kids and let them go out to the society. Not expecting anything else from the kid. So ultimately the only thing they gain from making kids is the happiness of looking after them and see them being grown into adults.

If you really need the joy of having kids you can have it in many other ways. Adopt a dog and you can have the joy of looking after it and watching it growing into an adult and expect nothing from it. I know it's rude to say. So, All I say is making a child is an option. If you feel it's worthy, go for it. And remember you have to stay with them for some time. Otherwise, you are cruel even than me.

Speaking of releasing children to the society, I recently visited one of my friends and the last time I visited him is for his wedding. How he's a father of 2 kids, 8 and 2 years old and the 8 year one is a disaster. He's trying to show himself off to us strangers. He was climbing trees and riding his bicycle with hands off. We took them a pack of chocolates and the parcel was on a chair. I called the guy and said we bought it for him and he can take it. But he was so shy to take the chocolate in front of us. That's how exactly we were when we were young. We were afraid of strangers because there wasn't many. And what I felt is, this young fellow must do everything his father did and whatever he become, he'll be living the same life. We call it life but it's just the nature (Or whatever) surviving through another body.

It says people need a hope to live. It's a fundamental thing as I've noticed. In many days my hope of the day is to have a tea or pulp drink with a cigarette in the evening. Then maybe have a cigarette before sleeping. Just two hopes to run. Less fuel for life.

If you considered it more, living without hope is the real challenge. It doesn't mean you have to face it. But for some, living in the edge could be the meaning of life. Not making the next generation.

We try to give huge meanings to the word 'love'. We try to give it universal values, but practically the word 'love' exists in stereotype form in the world. The hardest thing is to maintain love without any expectations. If it is not reflected in the social or family system, it will lose its value. Love has a definition. If your love doesn't fit, such love becomes lonely. But even being alone like that, maintaining love is a challenge. After two people fall in love, get married and have a child, other values are added to the bond between them. Even if it is a chemical thing for the survival of the system, we have given values to it. If you cross that line, the challenges faced by two people who are together just for love are huge. We think that those challenges are from the outside society, but the real challenge is between them. That's what makes living together just for love a challenge. You have to save your love from your selves because you are the biggest enemy of it.

Love, Marriage, Family and Children - Part 5 - Time Scales

Now this series of posts are becoming lazy to write. But I have already drafted the framework of the posts. So even though I feel terribly sleepy, better complete this, post and put aside with my peace of mind. Since this is being written since 2018, when I see some of the early ideas, I feel considered. Sometimes terrible. Am I the same person now?

I see how other people are struggling to survive. I see their struggle to make their kids strong. That's not easy. The world is rushing towards a severe condition to live. It's becoming worse in every way. Even These environmental situations are not good for kids. Air is polluted. It's getting hot. Food is poisoned. Medicine is even worse. Most of the medical practitioners are myth believing stupids. Humans are evolving into morons and they change their living surroundings into chaos. So if you think your child will be born into a better world, you are wrong. It's time to wake up. You have ruined the world just by existing on it. It won't get any better.

In assumption, most popular and major reason for all the climatic disasters we are yet to face is the population. We are consuming earth resources at a rate that the world cannot tolerate. So today's child will be suffering as an adult in the future than you do today.

You may argue that this ideology is against the nature. It's natures way to have kids and continue the genes isn't it?. Then I ask why? Humans have the ability to change their surroundings according to their comfort. Humans are defining the nature itself while being a part of it. Humans are the internal gear of nature. And since nature is everything, it's a failed statement itself.

And a child with either my kind of or her kind of genes will surely hate us for giving it it's life.

And all you want is fuck and have kids for your own satisfaction.

It's always debatable. So let's keep unborn children away from the equation. We really don't know how they'll feel when they are old enough to understand and question their existence. Most people don't bother questioning the existence today and the proportion of those kind will be the same.

And who knows, what if suddenly the world leaders become sensible and make decisions to undo the bad things happening. What if that lead the world to a heaven in 20 years? What if the world with it's inhabitants learned to coexist alone with all the disasters and pollution? What if animals ultimately evolved to survive the disaster. What if the polluted air becomes breathable? So many what-ifs... Isn't the future unpredictable?

The way we move is not good and that's a fact. But who am I to judge that? A human only live for about 70 years and earth is 4.5 billion years old. Individual ideas are merely tiny specks in it's timeline. 

Bringing Tony Home

I worry because I cannot write exact feelings I had throughout the read. And even worry much that it took me a wait of few days to write about this and now I cannot recall the thoughts I had just after finishing it. And that reminds me that I was amazed by how good Mr. Abeysekara remembers his childhood so in a way I almost went to a conclusion about writing. 'To be a good writer, you must have a good detailed memory. Otherwise, what you write will be like a flat desert.'

If you are a dog lover and have a passion for history and have memories around Pannipitiya and Highlevel road, I guess you will enjoy reading this. Though I cannot guarantee you'll enjoy it as I did, I like to kindly remind you that we don't have many reading material about experiences with pets in Sri Lanka for adults.

I recall what I felt was something like sorrow. Not exactly that but something close. With Mr. Abeysekara's narration, I felt something nostalgic. I remembered all the dog friends I had since childhood. So I let the train of thoughts to cross here.

Starting from MENIKE, a small dog owned by Samadara nenda (my aunt) who was living with us. I remember MENIKE had a bad front leg and and she walked like jumping. She was light brown and small. She had fur in her ear tips. I think I was like 3-4 years old. Maybe it's a long lost jumbled memory. Then there was LAIKA named after the famous Russian astronaut Laika. She was a year older than me and lived with us for 17 years. Later after MENIKE, nenda also adopted a fluffy puppy named JAMBO. Don't remember whether he was a child of Laika but most of the ones we had were Laika's children. JAMBO was a chubby one. He fell down from the front wall and injured his front leg. Then the leg was shivering time to time and never recovered. Maybe it's a nerve damage. He just lived for a year or so. There was an old Black and cream color coated male dog named COLONEL. He lived at MENIKE's time. The oldest dog I have in memory. I remember he having a badly opened wound in his testicles and we took him to the vet in a kichi kichi Delika van. This happened about 35 years ago and the only vet we had is the government one. It was nearly impossible to take a time from him back then. 

I remember my bappa doing GODA WEDAKAM for all the dogs we had. Bappa once took home a survivor from the road and named him CARLO because his snout was black and coat as ash/ brown. He was in a really bad situation with lots of ticks, fleas and badly exposed skin with wounds. Bappa carefully treated him and he become the most beautiful one in the area. After a year or two while he was unleashed, he went missing. Bappa was furious and looked everywhere but couldn't find a clue. Later we received news that someone who came from a van took him away. A person from the village has seen the dog inside the van. 

Among many kids LAIKA had, BROWN was lucky to stay with us. He was big and completely brown. He was loved mostly by my Amma. He lived about 6-7 years or so and the whole neighborhood was feared of him. One day when we returned from home, Amma was crying and said someone has poisoned BROWN. Later that evening, BROWN died while Amma looking at him. I still remember seeing Ammas face from the window of my room. Her eyes getting wet while watching her favorite pet having a painful death. She was never interested in adopting a dog for a long time afterwards. 

In late 90s, Taththa's friend Jayasinghe uncle brought home a puppy. DINGO! A son from his own pet girl at his home Ragama. It was a cream colored Terrier and was the first non local breed we had. He also had this record book with his family history and all and it was quite an experience for us. Being a terrier, he was quite an active one and a disaster. He live with us for years and then Taththa gave him to my uncle Manoj. He lived with them for years and one day got hit by a lorry while he was playing on the road. What I now remember is DINGO never went old. He was maybe 10 years when he died but all the time he was fluffy, woolly and full of life. And as I remember, he's the first dog that we have pictures. After 2000, I came to Colombo and lost track of the dogs at home. I remember a Rottweiler like dog named BRUNO living at home for some time. He was not a Rottweiler but he must have had an ancestor.

Now as an adult, I have lived with 5 Black German Shepherds once at my current home. My wife had a lady named PATTIE. She was very old when I met her. After she left, MICKEY came as a puppy in 2010, she had 7 babies in 2012 and 3 of them stayed with us. They were COLIN, ROSY and PODDY. They all had different characters and I do not want to write extensively on them because it'll be a really long essay. While the 4 of them staying, PODDY had a baby with COLIN and he was BRUNO. He was not a healthy one from the beginning. PODDI left us in 2017 after trying really hard breaking us all badly. Her son left us later the same year with a kidney failure after a huge struggle. ROSY left us in 2020 giving us the same pain. 

MICKY mom and her son COLIN still living with us and they are our world if I say it in a single word. COLIN has a weired attachment to me and sometimes it's a pain in the ass :-D and I say MALA WAATHAYAK to him.

Apart from these, I have countless dog friends in the road, at the temple, at the shops in the village and at my office premises. With a wife who has a craziness for dogs, we make dog friends everywhere we go.

I can say I know dogs. I feel them. They feel me. I know and may have felt the exact feeling little Tissa had. I may have done the same if I was him. Maybe I'd me more skeptic and plan the whole adventure more carefully. Maybe the story I write will be a totally different one.