I actually enjoy squirrels and I am very happy to have them in our garden. I even like the idea of them eating some of the suet. It's when they run off with the whole thing, that I want to put a halt to it. They are very smart and hungry: a formidable combination.

The squirrel I was watching today knew there was food nearby. All he had to do was figure out how to get to it.

When I first caught sight of him he was hopping through ivy so thick that he was almost completely disappearing when he touched ground. The thing that was so fascinating about this was that he just hopped and then hopped and then hopped again. I am sure he knows the garden well and has navigated through it before, but still. He just hopped.

If a human was doing that, he would be thinking: I probably should have hopped over there instead. The others hop higher than I do. Maybe I shouldn't be hopping anyway. Maybe something on the ground will hurt me when I land. I wonder if I look silly. And on and on.

Another human might think while hopping: I am the best hopper. There is no one who can hop like me. I am so good at hopping that I can't believe no one has recognized me for it yet. If I'm doing it, it must look good. Everyone wants to be like me.

And another human hopper would be thinking: I have to get as much food as possible because you never know when there won't be any more. And another hopper would have another set of thoughts and so on.

Wouldn't it be something to experience life in the moment the way the members of the animal kingdom do? Wouldn't each moment be more valuable and real that way? What if the worries, the fears, the arrogance's were gone? What then? I think that then we would be our genuine selves, in our beauty.