Skunks

I love skunks. While most people are afraid of skunks because of their rather unpleasant spray, I have never worried about skunks because I share their personality type and because I take special care to show affection and love to that which is unfairly ignored and slighted by others. I am of the belief that other people will defend what is easily defended, and will love what is easily loveable. It takes special care to defend that which other people are hostile to, or to bring up with ohter people unfairly slight, or to love what other people neglect and fear. After all, our character is shown by how we treat those who are least regarded, not how we treat those whom everyone loves and respects.

Skunks are actually quite extraordinary animals. They are of that personality type that I call "defensive-massive retaliation." This would be, incidentally enough, my own natural personality type. That is, skunks are not aggressive, but when attacked or threatened (and they can be a bit jumpy about threats) they are very unpleasant. The same is true for me when I feel attacked or threatened. Skunks spray (and the truth, like skunks, can stink to the high heavens), and they also claw and bite. In other words, don't mess with a skunk. However, people react the wrong way to skunks--by fearing and avoiding skunks, rather than respecting skunks, and me, as they ought.

Skunks are very friendly animals. They are hyper and energetic, and love to be cuddled and pet. Though many people do not take the time to get to know them, out of misplaced fear, they are very outgoing and social creatures, even if they are outcasts. They appreciate and love those who appreciate and love them, and those people are few and far between. They are clever and intelligent, and a tad on the vengeful side, and often have the strange habit of biting toes (this is a quality I do not share, for those remotely curious). Despite being members of the weasel family, like ferrets and minks, they are not known for being particularly sneaky or duplicitous, but are rather avoided altogether.

During a sermon once, my pastor at the time (Mr. Webber), called the prophet Nathan the first skunk in the bible. At that point I realized my parents had given me the perfect name and the perfect namesake. Although I had been interested in biblical Nathans before that time (I do, after all, have a healthy and somewhat Hebraic interest in the importance of naming), that made me study the relationship between the name and the namesake, and my favorite animal, all the more closely. After all, the relationship between skunks and I had now become a somewhat obvious thing, to others as well as myself.

As I reflect upon my own life experience as an outcast, I reflect that there was meaning and importance to the suffering. It made me a lot more sensitive about other people (and animals) than I would been, and allowed me to relate to others who suffer equally unjustly. My suffering allowed me to serve a useful purpose, by comforting the afflicted and by loosening the chain on the oppressed, something that many pay lip service to but few actually do. It made me a patron saint of unpopular but necessary causes, because I figured (rightly) that if one is going to suffer, one should at least suffer for righteousness' sake, rather than for stupidity and error. And skunks, therefore, became my motto, because our struggle is the same--the struggle for love and respect in a world that ignores, slights, attacks, and fears us. Who couldn't love a cute little black and white striped animal when one realized how unfairly it had been treated. If I had an ideal pet, it would be a skunk. For, to paraphrase Churchill, cats look down on you, dogs look up to you, but skunks look at you as an equal.