Dolphin Address 39
October 10th 2005
The worst thing you can do to a dolphin is to cut its social bonds. Some Delphinaria use this knowledge to discipline a dolphin that does not want to obey to a show drill.
It works very well on humans too. Solitary confinement is like a last resort for authority to force a prisoner to comply with its rules. Exposing a mind to the gravity of time and throwing it into the wilderness of a social void effectively breaks down even the strongest willpower. When living becomes pointless it grinds to a standstill, an emotional paralysis, a heart arrest in full awareness. The 'Pappilon' movie illustrates this. Only the Mount Cleverest survives.
It all seems to nicely tie in with the theory that Dusty was ostracised from her pod because she braved the rules by her superior intelligence. Human society is not very kind to mavericks either. She must be smart, as she easily seems to survive where her fellow species has to organise its survival to an intensity that is hardly equalled by any other society. She might even have chosen solitude by herself, unwilling to comply with disciplines that frustrate her intelligence.
Yet, no dolphin seems to be an island either. She chooses to socialise with humans and the obvious explanation is the void of her own existence. We may even dare to think that she prefers human response. She seems intrigued by our action though from her point of view our water skills must hardly out grace driftwood. Still she does not celebrate her superiority at our expense. Neither does she stoop to our inadequacies. She maintains her personality, graces us with her attention, acknowledges our caresses and is always in for ludic endeavour.
She is not just there. She takes her time outs in every encounter and reappears with some sort of intention. It may not be too obvious at the time, but when I review the video takes she displays a varied behaviour that goes beyond mere curiosity or need to rub shoulders. Like the one in the swell over 'Two bottle island'. She is enjoying the power of the waves by hitching ride after ride and then she comes over to me, like inviting to join her. Realising, however, that the camera is between us, she sweeps her head away in a grunt of disapproval and shows me in an easy barrel roll that there is really nothing to it. Then she flashes back as if to check the effect of her demonstration. In other takes she shows anticipation to our manoeuvring that adds to our own into synchronised action.
When you travel a road more often it tends to become shorter in time. You sort of start book marking its characteristics and note the more subtle data that fill in between. A dialogue with your whereabouts will accompany your thoughts. You become an expert on the tiniest changes. This is a yield of solitude. The greater the mind the more it will identify and be able to anticipate.
Maybe this is the way the dolphin exercises her faculties, by exposing herself to our presences and inserting stimuli as a reality check. No hassle with contrary opinions, no detours by prescriptions of polite nature, ever projecting a straight line of thought to her own satisfaction. She may balance her loneliness with our curiosity only to celebrate the spoils of her solitude, like gathering emotional momentum to continue her journey through life.
We need not ponder her motives for absence any longer. Thursday, on October 6th, my mobile phone finally paid off. Trevor called in with the ultimate bliss: 'Dusty is back in the Boathouse Bay', shortly after followed by Mildred. I dropped everything and full sped over. I kitted up, no camera, this was too private. Hardly past the jump and dive rock and thrown about in serious waves I saw her flash by underneath me. After accompanying Ute out to the rocks she joined me halfway 'Two bottle island'. I felt her exhilaration about our reunion, she swam beside me with her beak practically in my armpit. She moved through the breakers over the island like a gull in gusts of gale force. Several times she cannon balled by at the closest of quarters in an explosion of glee.
I don't have a clue where she's been but it must have inspired her appetite like a hunger in a supermarket. Or was it the lonely shade of solitude?
Rabindranath Tagore comments on freedom: ' When I twist a violin string between my thumb and index finger it can adopt any conceivable shape. Some people call this absolute freedom. If, however, I tune it on my violin, I can elicit the most enrapturing melodies from it. Genuine freedom is not freedom of, it is freedom to.'
How I wish we could talk.
Jan Ploeg, Meadow Fanore, October 10th 2005
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