George Clooney’s Pig Dies

As we all know, George Clooney’s pig, Max, really did die this time (there were reports, two years ago, that he died). Now, I like Clooney as much as anyone, mostly because he is willing to take a stand politically and artistically. Oh, and because he’s really handsome and doesn’t come across as smarmy.

But his gifts span far greater than sartorial splendor and impeccable coiffing. His most impressive gift is his super-human ability to dissociate and compartmentalize. In every interview I’ve read or seen with him, when the interviewer raises the topic of Max, Clooney makes some kind of bacon joke. Either he says he fed Max bacon, or he threatens him with turning him into bacon, or at the very least, he says he still eats bacon. He seems to find it ridiculous that after spending over a dozen years living with Max, one might think he had developed a new perspective regarding eating pigs.

My mother spent two weeks living next to a farm in Scotland and saw cows everyday, and since returning she hasn’t had a bite of beef. Not that a movie star should be as evolved as my therapist and part-time Buddhist mother, but 18 years living with a pig and he still eats them? Doesn’t that take an enormous amount of brain power to rationalize?

This is yet another example, for me, of one of my biggest faults: I have unreasonable expectations.

I expect that if you have integrity in one area of your life, and/or you stick up for one kind of voiceless population (say, children), that that urge might spill over into other parts of your life. I expect, unfortunately, that people will be consistent in their beliefs. And each time my expectations are decimated, I’m reminded that . . .

When you have expectations, you set yourself up for disappointment. When you have no expectations, you set yourself up to be pleasantly surprised. I’ve gotta set myself up for more pleasant surprises.