Writing Life by Andrew Dib

I really loved watching Bali’s street dogs strutting their doggy stuff while I was there for a week. Wild and seemingly threatening, they roam the streets and beaches doing as they seemingly please. But I never once witnessed them to be actually or potentially harmful to humans in any way. Of course many do have rabies and do potentially pose a health risk (although many have been treated for rabies by the State —they're the ones wearing collars). What I observed and loved was that they seemed mostly unfazed by and uninterested in humans. Sometimes they would engage and play with us. Occasionally whilst sitting on the beach after a swim one of them would come and just sit right in front of me or next to me (not sure why...). But generally they stick to themselves, strutting and chasing and sniffing and pissing, barking and fucking, scrounging and sleeping, without daily subjugation or deprivation of their natural instincts and faculties. They looked pretty happy and peaceful...

I’m not sure how it is in the lives or minds of others, although I do wonder and enquire a lot. I would love to bypass people’s conscious mind though and travel into that place where conscious mind meets unconscious , to really see. To myself too. And I do try. But short of that kind of technology being available just yet I will have to suffice with asking questions and hoping for the best. Although, the problem is that to get a full picture on someone, or myself, one must be willing to enter that dark zone within to give a full account. Or so I have come to believe. And I often wonder if anyone actually exists without that darkness within. I mean, if someone was born into idealistic circumstances — environmentally and psychologically — would they still harbour darkness as well as light? I can only truly know my own world and my own mind, and even then I don’t think I can completely understand it. But more so than I can know any other, if I so choose, that is. I suspect, how...