The Background Hum

I'm always transfixed by 'The Dog' at the Prado Museum in Madrid. A masterpiece Goya did not intend to create, and yet undeniably one. I'm drawn to it, like many others. One look at the upward gazing dog, caught in a congealed mass, has us all spellbound.

Maybe, because all our fiction, our imagination, are but weaves in the web of our mind. Is the dog fighting to stay afloat, is he fighting for the shore? Or is he only attempting to capture one last glimpse of the world with its vast sky above? Is there something worth fighting for?

Dogs, cats, monkeys, pigs, mice, men and many more—how different are we really, in our quest to stay above the water, beat the odds? Goya's walls were pathways into his mind, into the human mind, into my mind. The before and after, and everything in middle will become a blur, one day—but the fight to stay above and afloat, and the question of the worth of that fight will always play out a constant, albeit irregular, background hum.