POINT TO PONDER
It seems people are happiest in the moment, when they are able to shut that voice in their head off and get to the tasks at hand.
STORYLINE -- By Rajiv Shah
The other day I was driving down freeway on my way to my favorite park. In the backseat was my trusted best friend - my always enthusiastic dog. The window was cracked just enough so she could stick her head outside and enjoy the winds zipping by, lifting her compact, triangular black ears off her head and giving them the appearance of black bats swirling together in a synchronized dance. This little dog was happy. Happy as can be, not a place in the world that she'd rather be than right there in my window getting a natural blow dry from gales of a new day.
Suddenly I felt envious. And that envy continued when we arrived at the park. I let her out and shut the door, my mind still grappling with image of her face blissfully riding the breeze.
Questions raced through my mind. Why are dogs so happy? Why is my dog so content with a simple wind in her face? If I stuck my face out the window, would I receive the same satisfaction?
In the middle of this mental debate warring in my head, I was pulled hard. My dog, no longer concerned with the car ride over was off and immediately onto something else, a healthy rotund squirrel. Up the tree the squirrel went and my dog bounced under, hoping that a fateful misstep would have the chubby little rodent hurtling down towards her. Alas, to my pleasure, the squirrel made it high above, and I felt happy that she didn't get the squirrel. Not because I feared for the squirrel's safety or because I'm a PETA supporter or anything; I was happy because my dog didn't get what it wanted. And then it hit me, the pangs of guilt.
More questions raced to my mind. How could I, as a caring human being, want my dog to be unhappy? Why was I envious of a dog in the first place? Was I bad person for feeling the way I did? And how could I find ways to improve myself? Obviously, this was a sign that I had to get better.
I looked to my dog, prepared to shower her with love to compensate for my ill will - deciding to buy her a pet squirrel if I had to – but at that moment she couldn't have cared less. She was squatted over a nice tuft of grass peeing freely into the greenest parts, a contented and joyous look on her face.
REFLECTION
A friend once asked me if life is better for a dog. She wondered if dogs were stupid and maybe that's why they had the capacity to feel joy at such high levels. “Ignorance is bliss,” she would say. I have thought about that a lot, about whether our higher functions, our intellect can sometimes get in the way of doing, of living in the moment.It seems people are happiest in the moment, when they are able to shut that voice in their head off and get to the tasks at hand. I wanted to know if dogs had that critical, omnipresent voice that seems to be so well-meaning.
What I found was that noted animal cognition researcher William Roberts studied different species of animals and their ability to remember events in time. According to Mr. Roberts, animals lack the “sophistication” to remember events as humans do, to form memories, to self-edit, their minds committed wholly to the present.
Initially, I wondered how dogs and other animals can remember commands and who we are if they aren't capable of forming memories. Apparently, an animal operates the way a human child would – a child learns to walk, talk, and obey basic commands but cannot necessarily remember when and how they learned how to perform that specific command.
For example, if you've ever done anything where you were so completely entrenched in the doing that you lost track of time and space, that would seem to be the experience of a dog and a child. You didn't think about or remember how you learned that activity, were not mentally editing your relation to it, but just doing it.
Perhaps there is a higher joy in simplicity, in the doing of things in the present moment? Maybe that voice that is so critical of others and yourself is not your best self. The best part exists in the doing, in the moment in front of you, the one in which you do not think but let go and let yourself do.