Definitions

There are two kinds of smarts, street and cultural.

I have street smarts, which is to say wired in or, as Boss would put it, instinctive.

Boss has, as I would put it, cultural. He has some wired-in stuff, of course, but most of what he gets comes from reading, interacting with other humans, and experience. While I have on occasion seen him sniff when entering a place, I'm glad he has me to sniff for him and let him know something about the surrounding. People need dogs. Boss needs me. There are some people who need Boss, to balance out the equation. His students and clients. Of course his friends. Notably, among these is C. and W. and the Englishman, F., and that guy up at Westmont, C., whom the Boss first met at the Xanadu Coffee Shop.

Lately, Boss has been working furiously on a long, long project involving definitions. I was around when the idea for it began percolating. Students and clients began asking him questions about terms and ways that were appropriate for writing things, particularly for telling stories. He has been clarifying, providing definitions that a dog could follow as well as definitions a writer could understand (if the writer had a dog). I think this is all rather nice, particularly since somehow Boss managed to lose or otherwise let get away from him a sizable draft of the work. By my count, he has been carefully redoing the work since November of last year.

He has not, however, sought to define the word "change." You are surprised that a dog would know about quotation marks, I can see that, but from my years of listening to his classes and editorial discussions, I know a thing or two about quotation marks. I know that dogs do not need them, but humans do. If you're going to be around humans, you'd better get used to quotation marks.

Back to change.

We all do it. We all progress (I learned that word from Boss). Sometimes he says, "Sally, shall we progress to bed?" or "Sally, shall we progress to our walk?" Occasionally, when he is in a mood, he will say, "Sally, can we progress to the car and leave the sniffing for gophers to another time?") We move from place to place, we become more familiar with things, we adopt behaviors and their effects. Those of us who are dogs particularly enjoy a settled routine where we can spread out, become part of the surrounding and take in the joys of the surrounding. Some people--but never a dog--would call that approach taking things for granted. We do not take for granted. Our behavior is based on how much we have absorbed. This is our growth. We move into things and we become them.

This is largely what the Boss tries to get in his work and in his attempts at teaching others who want to do the kinds of work he does. This is what I do with Boss.

There is never enough time, and things have their own way of growing, sometimes away from us, sometimes even closer to us. Boss tries on occasion to tell me things about his regard for me, and they are good to hear. But my behavior is already based on my understanding of them, and I know of them as I know to herd animals and humans, and I know of them as I know I will sometimes find myself in the midst of some response, back into the present moment and doing.

We are all of us, humans too, growing toward places we have set our hearts upon. Being is a growing. We grow as long as there is being. Life without Boss is unthinkable and so I will stop thinking because that would get in the way of my being.

P.S. Epstein cannot be all that poorly off. He left some of his kibble uneaten, but to show him the order of things around here, I have eaten it.