...and now it's still. The bath is over. and the duck moves away with its invisible paddle feet, to continue the never-ending search for food, food, food, and only food... And of course it is breathing.
Earlier I looked at a squirrel (also seeking food) and thought 'none of these creatures is able to do anything to change the conditions'. But we can - and look what a mess we make of it. The design of the world (or the designed part of it) is mostly awful. Time to alter that!
But the feather, what a marvellous evolution, enabling a creature to fly, to float, to swim, to dive, to withstand rain and cold, and also to be cleaned and kept fresh by this bathing procedure. All with one component, adapted to so many functions... We still have everything to learn and I doubt if we will learn it unless we change our ways and motivations...
...look at the complexity of things we need to fly, to swim, to move about on the surface of the earth, to keep clean, and to get our daily food... Only in breathing, perhaps, do we act as directly and independently as does a duck. And now our technologies (and our jobs) are threatening the air itself... and the water, the food, everything...
And the ducks have smaller brains than we do!... Clearly we are mis-using our collective intelligence. That's why I'm writing all this.
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