People who have dogs live longer and have lower blood pressure, medical research now tells us. Why is that? Perhaps the dog’s electromagnetic field cancels unhealthy human brain waves. Speaking of science, dogs are born scientists. They smell everything to determine its origin, its history, its future even. Much has been said about the comfort of dogs. We have 3 greyhounds. It’s the closest thing I can imagine to living with fairies and elves, or, sometimes, gremlins. Sixty-five pound gremlins. Maybe “troll” would be a better descriptive term. Living with them is as close to nature as we’re likely to get, now that most human existence is anti-nature. We’ve evolved to master our world only to find that our natural state was better for us. Life spans are longer, but are they more fun? Our short-lived Paleolithic ancestors were healthier and probably happier, though infection or accident killed them sooner. In those caves art and story-telling were born. The natural state of entertaining ourselves is, no doubt, at least in my mind, much more satisfying than the passive experience of modern gizmos. Dogs know how to entertain themselves with the most mundane objects. Being with pooches introduces us to our primordial selves. In that sense, dogs are reflections of who we once were. And canines have been around ever since hominoids have been around—greyhounds, for example are mentioned in the ancient scrolls and immortalized in ancient Egyptian marbles. Maybe dogs are the angels of our existences? After all, they meet all the qualifications and criteria for angelhood: purely innocent, loyal, grateful, vigilant, brave, respectful. And, if you’ve ever seen a greyhound run, it isn’t really running—they are literally flying above the ground. Gravity means nothing to them, both gravity in the sense of physics and gravity in the sense of seriousness. They are natural comedians, scathingly satirizing our sober attitudes. And, yet, for all their humor, they are essentially moral beings. They don’t proselytize their religion, but it is evident in their dreamy gazes at setting suns, deep sighs and content groans. I aspire to be a dog.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:29:53 +0000
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