Some days I feel like this dog

Problem-solving skills are important.

Some days, you just barely get by

Life seems to be a series of problems to be solved.

• Some of the time, I can just power through them by thinking hard.
• Some of the time, problems are just intractable, and I can’t figure out anything.
• And some of the time, problems are just barely within intellectual reach, so I can maybe figure something out if I work outrageously hard.

One example that struck me in childhood is that dogs and cats are intensely interested in how their cans of food get opened (and more importantly, how and when the food gets out of the can and into their bowls). But they are hopelessly intellectually ill-equipped to understand how the food got into the can. There’s a whole industrial infrastructure around pet food of which they cannot even conceive.

Some days I feel like that.

So does this dog, confronted with a problem just at the edge of his capabilities.

He’s a good dog. ^[1]

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Notes & References

1: Well, nominally. He’s a good dog, but still just a dog. It’s not as if he’s a cat, or something important like that. ↩