Smile. The Love Dog greets the morning sun

    Change is a painful world to some people, and I often find myself being scolded for embracing change too quickly or often. I think many people find safety in continuity and familiarity, and I understand that. I wrote once that for me, the first death comes when people stop changing, or reflexively see all change as disturbing and threatening. The second death is when life ends.
  It is difficult not to succumb to nostalgia, or the notion that we did things better than our successors. I suspect it has more to do with what is normal and familiar.
  This is one of the primary things that separates us from animals, and the subject I write about in “Soul Of A Dog,” due out next month. I’m going to be talking about this a lot on the book tour, so I’m thinking about it.
  Animals do not, as far as we know, have self-awareness or self-consciousness. They accept the reality they are in, and do not pine for days past, or lament their fates. Or fear change. This separates them from us, and does not make them inferior or inferior, but different.
  People who compare animals like dogs to children, or see them as human-like, diminish us and them. Aristotle wrote that the big difference between people and dogs is that humans have a conscience, the will to be better, even if they often fail. Animals can only live in the moment. That doesn’t make us better than them, just different.

  Maria, giving the donkeys some bread. Then she brushes them. I love watching this daily rite.

  Life, like attitude, is a series of choices. I’m in a ruthless mood these days about making room for life, defining what I really want and care about, and focusing on those things. I believe you write your own story. I have no wish to retire, slow down, or downsize for its own sake. I believe it is up to me to define what is important, and to pursue it. It is so easy to clutter our heads up with so much junk – useless information, gloomy people, unnecessary work and possessions. I’m guilty of all of the above, working hard to change.