Konrad Lorenz gives a good description of what I intend to do today in these first few paragraphs of an essay called “Dog Days,” which appears in Man Meets Dog (1949):
“I retire from human society and seek that of the animals–and for this reason: I know almost no human being who is lazy enough to keep me company in such a mood, for I possess the priceless gift of being able, when in a state of great contentment, to shut off my higher thinking powers completely, and this is the essential condition for perfect peace of mind.
When, on a hot summer day, I swim across the Danube and lie in a dreamy backwater of the great river, like a crocodile in the mud, amongst scenery that shows not the slightest sign of the existence of human civilization, then I sometimes achieve that miraculous state which is highest goal of oriental sages. Without going to sleep, my higher centres dissolves into a strange at-oneness with surrounding nature; my thoughts stand still, time ceases to mean anything and, when the sun begins to sink and the cool of the evening warns me that i have still another three and half miles to swim home, I do not know whether seconds or years have passed since I crawled out on the muddy bank.
This animal nirvana is an unequalled panacea for mental strain, true balm for the mind of hurried, worried, modern man, which has been rubbed sore in so many places. I do not always succeed in achieving this healing return to the thoughtless happiness of pre-human paradise but I am most likely to do so in the company of an animal which is still a rightful participant of it.”
“Dog Days” is my favorite part of Man Meets Dog.
Yes, I’m very critical of some of the theories in the book, but this essay redeems them all.
It’s probably the best piece of nature and dog writing I’ve ever read.
I’m going to try to do what Lorenz attempts to do on his summer day trips to the Danube with his dog.
I just won’t be swimming.
That’s why blogging will be light today.
