A reporter once asked me what I thought was the most essential requirement for being a good writer, or artist, and I was a bit surprised to hear myself say “compassion.” A writer, I said, must be able to put himself into someone else’s skin, to feel both empathy and sympathy so that he can capture the life of someone or something other than his own. Otherwise, he will become self-absorbed, and his stories and characters will simply bounce off of people, and not touch them where it counts. Good writing makes the reader think, makes him or her feel.  This is true of photography as well I think, it literally puts you in another place, makes you see something outside of yourself. I believe it is true of art also. And surely, of a good blog.

Animals raise all kinds of issues relating to compassion. Since they do not speak, we have no choice but to put ourselves in their place, even thought that can be like stepping into quicksand, can be fatal. We surrounded ourselves with our own experiences of life, forgetting that every single person in the universe has it harder.

Compassion has vanished from our political system, and from much of media,   organized religion, corporate employers,  medicine and the law.  It is out of style among humans dealing with humans, but It comes up all the time when humans deal with animals. For me, it is the thread, the narrative, the point. Compassion was the central issue involving  Simon. With Orson. With Frieda. With Fran.  With Rocky. With the fox. With Rose. With Izzy. Compassion is the theme of my life, in so many ways. Animals show us how to be compassionate, as they require it. They are voiceless and cannot speak for themselves. Compassion involves all kinds of conceptions and misconceptions. When I said I could not shoot the fox after seeing and photographing the three kits, I was flooded with all kinds of messages of relief, many of them expressing gratitude for Maria’s presence, as if a man could not possibly have come to this decision by himself, or without being cajoled into it.

I am not fit to judge my own compassion, but I can say that everything I do that people like – every good story, photo, poem, essay, journal entry – speaks to compassion. And touches the emotions of another human, connects with them because I know I am not different from the people who read my work. This realization Involves empathy and sympathy. Compassion as I see my work is the literal process of putting myself in the shoes – minds – of others. My feelings for Maria are evident, I am sure. But we encourage each other, we don’t create one another. That is a different thing, and not, I think, a healthy thing.  Nobody gives somebody else compassion, or makes them feel it. I think we all feel it in our own way. Einstein wrote that the challenge of humanity is to step out of ourselves and feel the things others feel. That is the beauty of the universe, he said, what connects us.

There is no point in my life at which I could have killed a fox with three babies in front of me, and left them to starve, not when Maria was around, not before. What I have learned about compassion – and writing –  is that we are, in fact, the same. If I lose a dog, I remember that every single person reading this has lost a dog or a cat. If someone loses a parent, I am aware that everyone my age I know has lost one parent, most often both. This is the beginning of awakening.

Compassion is making sure a dog does not suffer pointlessly. Imagining Frieda running wild in the Adirondacks so that I could train her. Seeing Simon lie in his pool of frozen water so that I could help heal  him. Compassion is seeing the fox’s offspring starve to death alone in a muddy den. Compassion is imagining the fear of the young boy that Orson bit on the neck, as his flood flowed down his chest and stained his T-shirt. Compassion is what Maria feels for Rocky, basking in the attention he is getting on a windblown day.  Compassion is understanding that the fear I feel is felt by every single person who reads these words, and that  this is not my isolated and unique experience of suffering, but the shared experience of living in this world.