The Job of Life

The commonality is generalized across different species. An innate ability to teach. An instinctive and unlearned skill. Unpaid yet invaluable. To shape, show, model, test and deliver survival techniques in a playful form. To fool a pupil into thinking they are directing the play and controlling the outcome. To let them think and believe the undetected learning is their idea. The skill of the elder, through play, is to correct the behavior of the young. To reward and respond to correct behavior and correct or ignore undesired behavior(s). Without realizing it, a young one is being trained to survive, without even knowing it.

This is the job of life and even though there is no guarantee that a well-rounded, balanced, responsible adult will emerge the onus is on the elder to offer every opportunity for that to happen. If achieved, then an existence of do no harm has prevailed over chaos, a balance for the greater good has been achieved and a chance to pay it forward has dodged a destruction bullet.

To observe Bali dogs playfully engaged in the most serious and important job, free from interference and manipulation, is fascinating and just simply fun. To realize what they are doing, free from ego, leads you to the only conclusion possible. Their lives, on a proven sentient level, have reached an evolutionary stage of true altruism. No wonder they are referred to as, ‘mans best friend.’

​Only a true and rare best friend would show you how to do the most difficult job, with no conditions attached, beyond asking you to know that in life you get what you give, its as simple as that.