ONE'S OWN COUNSEL

A sheep, alpaca and kangaroo lesson.

I have enjoyed the luxury of being surrounded by open space, peace and tranquillity on a country property for a while now. Living on top of a very large hill with the muted sounds and silence of the bush, I never realised what it really means to be surrounded by wild and domestic animals and how they communicate.

From various distant trees the birds call to each other, the kangaroos tend to communicate more by body language than grunting and the sheep, alpacas, cattle and horses communicate vocally but generally, if they feel uncomfortable, they walk off.   

It is quite normal for wild kangaroos and the domestic sheep and alpacas to hang around peacefully together in the same paddock.  They are different species, at the one time, feeding at the same dinner table or simply resting.  I have never seen any show of disharmony.

The animals live and let live.  They don’t meddle, interfere, argue or attack other animals.  There is room for all at the dinner table.  Besides eating they often follow each other around (especially the sheep and alpacas).  But if feeling uncomfortable they simply wander off or hop away.

Then there is the human animal. 

Some human animals object to others being at the same dinner table, or the same function as those of a different colour such as white, black, yellow, brown etc.

Some humans may object to sharing with those of a different culture, from a different social group or have a different accent. 

People are interesting, we learn from their behaviour.  There are those in our society who ensure they know everybody’s business and meddle where it is not warranted and their efforts are unwanted. Following, they seem to think it is their right to spread everyone’s' business around with anyone who will listen.  Thus, the listener very often has little interest but pays attention to be polite.  I am unsure whether the offender does it to demonstrate their knowledge of others or, to display their willingness to help others or, to make themselves feel good or lastly, they have nothing better to do or talk about.  

There are people who continually use subversive questioning techniques to dig for personal or business information about individuals and then spread the word to numerous others. There are times when they do not realise it is wrong, if not immoral.  It may be considered a component of sharing, however if it is done without permission, it is breach of confidentially, privacy.  They think they are smart and undetected.  But this deluded thinking is erroneous as perhaps others have always known but chose to say nothing.  What happens?  Once it is realised, people who have been transgressed and their personal and/or business information compromised, trust in the offender has been lost and consequently, will not tolerate this behaviour and walk away.

Why can't some people just sit quietly and enjoy being with others and talk normal social things instead of talking about others and trying to subvert and sneakily gain information?  Like, WTFC? (Who The Stuff Cares).

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Throughout my life, there have only been three or four people close to me who never talk about other people and their business or personal lives.  Those people were my mother, father, sister and my very best friend of over 20 years.  All of these folk are intelligent humans.  For hours we would sit quietly and discuss food, music, philosophy, the arts, politics, travel and cars etc.  It was never boring, was consistently interesting and thought provoking and never crossed others' boundaries.

Sometimes we could also sit together in our own thoughts and never speak at all.  Nearly all of them are gone now and I very much miss them. 

In the animal kingdom, I am sure kangaroos never feel they have to show one-upmanship, (except in breeding season to show the ladies they are the alpha male), nor how much they know about others and gossip.  The same is for the sheep and alpacas. They simply live their life as a farm or wild animal does, with survival and enjoyment of their circumstances.  They do not have to prove anything to anyone.  No point scoring.

Why can’t the human animal have this acceptance and grace for what they have been given and simply live life without having to prove they know more about people than the average Joe and point score.

If it is a matter of point scoring, there is only one score board, one scorer and one competitor.  With only one competitor, the score is null and void and it cancels itself out with the sore of nil and therefore the sole competitor has nothing, zilch, zero.

Does this happen in the non-human animal world? 

Does our human intelligence facilitate this, or are the non-human animals smarter?

Let us all share the same dinner table and respect privacy.

Verde.