“Trapped Between an Animal and a God”: Writing Human Nature’s Contrasts

Cloud and Lizard

My dad once said, offhandedly, that to be human is to be “trapped between an animal and a god.” That stuck with me, and more so over time, to the point now that if I was good at drawing, I would post online a diagram of an enormous roiling cloud of royal blue, ribboned with blood red and leaf green and luminous throughout with white-yellow light as bright as sunlight but as warm as candlelight, tailing down toward—and finally, oddly, stuffed into—a bipedal lizard.

The lizard is limited and vulnerable, and makes an odd partner for the intuitions of the cloud toward boundlessness, wholeness, and freedom. If the lizard tries to express these intuitions in their lizard approximations—for example, by dominating or winning esteem among other lizards—it often finds its efforts sadly puzzling, thwarted.

Moreover, confined to lizard faculties and occupied by lizard concerns, the cloud finds its own nature remote, mysterious, difficult to fathom; there is even sincere doubt whether the cloud exists in the same sense as the lizard, or if it is just a way the lizard feels about itself. The whole experience is quite bewildering.

This is how I would describe what people call “the human predicament.” No human is entirely free of it, because it is innate to the contrasts in our makeup.

On the other hand, some humans, as they go through life, seem to find their way. For these people, the cloud and the lizard are not hopelessly tangled and confused, but are in harmony. The cloud flows through the lizard, expresses itself through the lizard—to the point where, hearing the lizard speak or even watching it move, one almost gets wet with cloud-steam.

These are the humans I’m able to read with the greatest interest and enthusiasm, because when they speak it is not just another sorrowfully brilliant treatise on how no lizard can be truly fulfilled (the core thesis in this part of the world since the great lizard wars of the prior century). Rather, these people’s speech resounds with liberation itself, happiness itself, and this liberation sounds thrillingly similar across time, culture, and lived experience.

Here are whom I believe to be a few such humans, with a quote from each and something to read if you’d like:

• Dōgen Zenji. “But do not ask me where I am going / As I travel in this limitless world / Where every step I take is my home.” Quotes to start with
• Robindranath Tagore. “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” Quotes to start with
• Martin Luther King, Jr. “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land.” Speech transcript
• Fred Rogers. “It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life, which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our lives from which we make our choices is very good stuff.” Speech transcript
• Dolly Parton. “I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world.” Quotes to start with

I don’t need to read a lot by these people, because their statements seem to resonate with a joy and freedom that I find can quickly overwhelm the senses. So their writings and utterances feel best taken in small doses, like liqueur. A “browsing” style—skimming quotes, watching short YouTube videos—is great for this.

Honorable mention here of Shakespeare, who seems cosmically joyful at lizards and their travails, and how those travails sometimes reveal the clouds inside the lizards—as if he himself is not a lizard. A bit of a mystery there.

Writing the Cloud

In my view, all writing is cloud writing: whatever the cloud sees and feels in its journey through lizarddom. But some writing feels more of a piece with the cloud itself, feels more in sync with the cloud, and this is the writing toward which I am most drawn. Fortunately, we can do it ourselves.

I would say that cloud writing doesn’t require any particular lifestyle or mindset change—including any belief in “the cloud” as something other than cool features of the lizard’s oversized brain. But it does benefit from a kind of intimacy and immediacy, a (perhaps temporary) relaxing of superstructures that can crowd the picture.

Here is a cloud writing exercise. You are on an elevator with a young, curious child, going up two floors. For some reason which you can invent, the child needs to hear you speak your feeling for life. You’re only going up two floors, so you have at most twenty words, which you’ll need to share quickly, without forethought. What do you say to the child?

(Try it!)

Here’s mine—again, written quickly, sincerely, and without revision (other than to add punctuation):

You’re going to love it here—I hope. And trust, even. Trust, but verify. Please be well. Welcome.

Reading it back, I find it shaky, hesitant; it’s not going on anyone’s quote website. I recognize in it the accumulated doubt and fearfulness of this lizard—and, finding some voice among the false starts, the primal goodwill of this cloud. It’s a good self-portrait.

I’d love to hear your response. You can comment here, or email me with it if you like—I’ll be excited to read it, whether it’s sweet, sour, or bitter. I hope you enjoy the exercise!