May 2022
I’m on Barra again, less than a year since my last visit. This time, I came fully prepared to live in the rhythms of island life, by which I mean: I know the bus timetable now.
The bus timetable can easily dictate your life. I have exactly one option a day for getting the bus to Castlebay, where the shops are, and two in the opposite direction. The last time I came here, I was full of notions of walking everywhere, but the weather and my realisation that Barra is hillier than I remembered put paid to that idea.
Finding food: it’s the most basic driver of life. Which brings me to my big question of the day: Do non-human animals get bored?
Dogs get bored; so can domestic cats if they’re house cats. Probably other captive animals do, too, if not offered enough diversions—particularly if they’re social animals like us humans. The common denominator is that they don’t need to hunt for food. Their every basic need, we hope, is provided for. And if you know dogs and cats, you know that they often act like (a) food is the best thing ever and (b) no, they’ve not been fed yet, honest!
There will be some boring scientific explanation for this, involving evolution and dopamine.
And so, we’re back to being bored and its opposite: being in a state of constant tension.
Sometimes, at home, I look of of the window and wonder if that crow, there, on top of the tree, looking as I also do in the direction of the far hills and mountains, is doing anything other than simply taking a moment to be, and to breathe in the view. The wood pigeons in particular are much more obvious in their moments of rest: they hunker down, often with their other half, and I feel guilty if I disturb them —even if it’s with an offer of food. (They often hunker down on the windowsill while waiting for me, so it does happen. Sometimes I think they forgot what they came for. I can relate to that.)
But can they ever really relax? Could they ever relax so much that they actually get bored? Or do they enjoy, in times of relative plenty, some kind of perfect medium?
I’m thinking about this on Barra because even though I come here precisely because I know it’s the quickest way to default to factory settings, to really let go, I still find myself hearing this nagging voice that wants me to make the most of every precious moment. But I didn’t come here to do. I came here to be. So why is it so difficult?
Maybe it’s not actually that difficult. I’m sitting in front of the cottage, with my second cup of coffee. I’m wearing walking gear over my pyjamas for warmth. I can hear a cuckoo, and the baaing and bleating of ewes and lambs, whose day consists of grazing, and sitting, and the occasional gambol for the younger ones. There is just enough tension provided by the occasional passing human, occasionally with dog.
A passing bus, meanwhile, is quite enough excitement for one day.
Lambs being lambs, Earsary, Isle of Barra.
Cultures of Peace 