in thoughts...

just doing readings for my animal behaviour project.. the book, "Elephant Memories" by Cynthia Moss, is quite an interesting read... would have read the whole book and not just skimmed through parts relevant to my project, if I had the time...

anyway, came across this part about young elephant calves learning how to use its trunk(the calf is still not very good at utilizing this appendage) to break off food to eat:

"So often I saw a calf twirl and twirl its trunk around a single blade of grass, until finally it broke off, and then invariably it would drop it and have to spend even more time to pick it up. Eventually it would get the blade firmly in its trunk, lift it up, and then, apparently forgetting what the whole purpose was, deposit the grass on the top of its head."
Cynthia Moss, "Elephant Memories", 1988.

So cute.

and I can't help thinking that's what we do too. Was just reading D's blog that day, about how we are all so bogged down by stuff, we forget why we do the things we do, we get discouraged, we get stressed, we get unhappy...

just like the elephant calf that spends so much time twirling one pathetic blade of grass - we do so much, for so little in return...

but if that elephant calf never learns to break off that one pathetic blade of grass, it will never be able to break off one whole tree branch in future.

Don't lose sight of what you're doing, and why you're doing it. All this will be worth it. Just keep that in mind.