venerdì 9 luglio 2010

The Cow who has understood the secret of the Universe


I recently met this cow in a village in Albania. She was eating a plastic bag of rubbish and then, after this lunch, wandered along the road and settled down for a post prandial nap in the midst of even more... rubbish. I was so struck by this that I just had to write about her, so here goes...
Basically, they say that humans differ from animals (at least most animals, pets being an exception to the rule, as well as whales etc.) because we are blessed and cursed with language (and the knowledge of our own mortality, but that's another story.)

Words are at the basis of everything. If we don't have them we cannot actually express reality even to ourselves, so isn't it strange that we let them flow unchecked through our minds every day all day. We do not really choose what we'll concentrate on, unless we have developed highly advanced meditation techniques, and even then....

The next thing to follow the words and ideas, of course, are reactions and emotions. Sometimes these are pleasurable and sometimes not. The same situation of sitting in a beautiful place such as a beach may cause one person to dream, looking at the beauty whereas another sees nothing at all and just feels the heat, or worries about whether he or she switched the gas off before they left that morning.

If we could choose, of course, we would prefer the former, but life is not always like that. However, I am trying to perfect the art of being calm, even when surrounded by the shit life throws at us, just like this cow has done, sitting calmly in front of a rubbish container. Worry, after all, has never helped anyone, and certainly does not help to solve problems, whereas stopping, taking a deep breath and thinking things through, in the way you choose to, may well do.

So, here she is: the cow who has understood the secret of the universe: