By Profa de inglés

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I learnt from dogs to enjoy all those daily things that are wonderful--waking up to a new day, saying hello to your loved ones and also to strangers, going for walks, enjoying meals, doing things with people--the more people, the most exciting...

My hypothesis is that dogs enjoy every minute not because they are thick (silly), but because they know instinctively that they are lucky, really lucky. They know that they don't have to deal with The Struggle for Survival any more. They needn't hunt and kill, they needn't escape predators or protect their puppies with their lives. Consequently, they enjoy their good luck. I'd say that's being very intelligent. So I learnt this from them.

Of course, I'm a human, and traditionally humans have used sex and drugs to be happy... Drugs, especially, have been used since prehistory for the same purposes--to make life more endurable, like pain killers, or easier, more bearable, more exciting or more enjoyable, when possible. A great deal of the non-hallucinogenous drugs are legal and they are used daily by people from all walks of life. Taking them may be related to crime or to health, or to leisure, it depends on how people work it out. See what happens with alcohol. Some men kill their wives while being drunk, but others do so without being drunk. Some drunk people kill themselves and others while driving. But many other people drink alcohol and never harm anyone. They use it to relax or enjoy themselves in good company. So, really, it all depends how you use things and how you treat yourself.

The thing is that because we live in societies full of violence, power-abuse and self-destructiveness, sex and drugs have become very complicated issues and the risks they involve because of this have always made me suggest teenagers not to deal with sex and drugs until their personality is somewhat more consolidated, until they overcome that period of human development which is so very complicated for neurones. Until they consolidate the development of their own criteria. Sex and drugs make you particularly vulnerable, more vulnerable than if you read a book, paint a picture or spend the whole afternoon chatting away with friends. If you're not with the right people in the right place, with people who respect themselves and you, and who know what they are doing, then you risk a lot--people can use you, and abuse you.

Incidentally, one of the typical ways to check if they respect you is checking if they laugh at your choices--at what you wish to do or what you say, when it's not what they say. Typically, regular consumers, for instance, consider ridiculous the quantities that a new potential consumer takes, forgetting that  trying  for the first times is not the same as being a recurrent consumer. A glass of coke, of beer or a joint do no have the same effect in a regular consumer as in someone who doesn't usually have coke, beer or joints.

And how do dogs link with sex and drugs? Well, young people tend to identify that sex and drugs are fun, because they know adults use them. But because of all I tried to explain before, sex and drugs may be fun or may be hell, and we need to know this, really. We need to know why they are risky activities, and that's why I wrote the former explanation. They put you more at risk than other fun activities, like playing chess or spending an afternoon with friends chatting away. You can end up all alone with puke all over you among garbage cans in a dark and dirty street, or if you're a girl you can end up pregnant, for instance. You need some criteria to use sex and drugs when you're not surrounded by people who love and respect you, or know what they are doing, and have no intention of abusing you in any way!

So I just wanted to say that if we wish to be happy, to enjoy life, like dogs seem to do, there are a couple of useful guiding ideas: always remember that you're lucky (if you are), because this world is fucking dangerous, and then don't you ever let anyone abuse you, even if you think it's the most interesting person in the world. Abusers are never interesting. When you get some experience in the world , you'll identify them better, and your criteria will be more solidly established, and then you'll be prepared to make a good use of sex and drugs, if you decide to include them in your life.