Hugo...the Boss

No, I didn´t plan to invite my dog into my bed. Yes, I know that it is scientifically proven that dog owner´s sleep quality drastically wanes if they are woken up by a devoted face-licking session every morning. And a few times during the night. But who could resist those cute little button eyes. Well, I admit, accompanied by a bad breath that would never be forgiven in a lover.

One year has gone by since my little Tibetan Spaniel/Pekinese Hugo came into my life. Since then we are inseparable. He was found on the street, covered in dirt and fleas. I fell in love with him as soon as I saw his image on the internet. Seems as if we were destined to go through life together. It turned out, he had been found by my neighbours and a few hours later he was my new companion. I was happy and scared at the same time. Owning a dog and living alone is not always an easy task. But the reward of a dog´s love is priceless. 

My neighbour asked me not long ago if I love Hugo because he´s so well-behaved. People seem to forget that any misbehaviour of our dog is our own mistake. I feel Hugo getting nervous everytime I am not in a good mood. Your behaviour and condition is mirrored in your dog. And it needs a lot of dedication, patience and a bit of knowledge about dog training to make a dog a well-educated dog. No, when the dog enters your door, he needs to be well-behaved. If he´s not, he will be abandoned. End of story. There are no words to describe my disappointment in humans every time I see an abandoned dog on the street looking at me with sad eyes. Why? Because he was sad you were at work leaving him alone all day and destroyed your pillow out of boredom or dispair? Because you again walked him only ten minutes even if he´s a hunting dog that needs to be running a few hours a day in order to be satisfied? 

If you pay just a little attention to your dog every day and walk him a bit longer, you will be rewarded with ever-lasting, unconditional love. More than humans can give you in the most cases, isn´t it? Well, ok, they could learn our language to be perfect. But maybe they are so perfect just because they don´t speak it. 

I remember losing a lot of nerves with Hugo. He was not one of the easy-going ones, I had to fight for every tiniest piece of authority with a lot of patience and sometimes a small portion of despair. But he is my true companion, every day, in whatever shape I may be. I don´t know how my day would look like if he wouldn´t do his see-I´m-standing-on-only-two-legs-and-waving-to-you-I´ve-deserved-my-meal-earlier-dance. Or if I would enter the door and he wouldn´t come running with his guilty face in front of almost the whole content of my clothes basket. Or finding the furniture always in a perfect position. My, would that be a boring life.

Live. Experience.

I saw a commercial yesterday. It was advertising an HD programme and it was full of bursting colours and mind-blowing sounds, and of course a happy couple watching the huge flatscreen taking them to another world. I neither possess a huge flatscreen, nor am I a happy couple watching, nor am I delighted by watching explosions I could lose my eyesight from. But nevertheless, watching that scene you cannot escape the thought that an HD programme is the one thing missing in your life. 

What was really striking, was the slogan. "See more. Experience more." Have we reached the point today that we need to sit in front of the TV to experience things? Isn´t experiencing an activity? I watch other people sing in casting shows. Am I experiencing singing? No. There are enough karaoke parties, where I could experience it. I am watching a clumsy detective buying a magazine at a store. Am I experiencing it? No, I have a store downstairs myself, but at the moment I am watching TV, I am far too lazy to go for it.

Where does the idea come from, then, that we experience by watching TV? I believe that it has become especially hard nowadays to have the feeling we are really experiencing something interesting, exciting, or simply beautiful. We are flooded with sensations through television shows and movies every day, and nothing in our everyday lives could possibly be only half as terrific in comparison to the scenes that are boosted with special effects and too-good-to-be-true-sceneries. 

It has become very hard to recognize a ladybug that lands on your hand as a beautiful experience. Or just enjoying a beautiful panorama as an enriching moment. All of that is just not sensational enough. 

Ph.: K.P.

Thinking about the degradation of experience, I realised that the concept of experience differs significantly in English, German and Serbian. In English, experience is gained, it is a goal to be reached and you collect it like you collect photos in an album. There is an equivalent for experience in German, "Erfahrung", which is treated in the same way as the English "experience", but in this text experience is used in another sense. In German, there is the concept of "Erleben", stemming from "leben" - "live". In Serbian the concept functions in the same way "doziveti": "ziveti" - "live". In German and in Serbian fulfilling moments we "experience" are seen as the moments we live for, something that enriches us without having any further use for us. 

It is just the moments that make life really worth living. And they certainly cannot be found inside a box with moving pictures called television, no matter how flat the screen is and how huge the dimensions of the screen.

Dreams

How is it that we all start our lives full of dreams and destroy them one by one. When we are children, we imagine a splendid future. We are certain to be come superheroes, popstars, famous artists or, of course, princesses. Every approaching day seems sunny, colorful, exciting. Then we start going to school. Slowly a massive amount of numbers and letters flood us, leaving no freedom in the way we can combine them. We start to think about how to become a successful and admired personality. A lawyer, doctor or professor. Some of us will achieve it, some of us won´t. At the time we go to university, we start to call the quest for success and earnings our dream and we forget that our profession is not who we are, it is only what we do. After all, what do dreaming and considering law cases or cutting open human bodies in order to heal them have in common? Dreams should let us feel light and invincible. And our life would seem a lot brighter, if we wouldn´t stop to create them as soon as we reach puberty. Often, former dreams become nightmares, when we reach them. The ambitious fifth-grader who wanted to become the best lawyer in the district has achieved what she wanted now. She dreams about loosing her cases every night and wakes up feeling her heart racing and sweating. Dreams turn to goals, we dream of going to the seaside, of buying a wonderful house above the sea, having children, driving the car we like and similar. Why don´t we dare to dream the impossible anymore? Is it because we are too grown-up and are afraid of coming down to earth with a bang after all that dreaming? I think the opposite would happen. The more we dare to dream, the more is possible. And maybe we would be surprised what can be if we would stop to follow the given and "realistic" paths...