Learning something is a bottomless pit, loving is a bottomless pit, and if you really learn, love, and live to the fullest, you will never kick the bucket by ticking off an item on your list. pass it.

Many people have something called a “to-do list”. This is a list of things I want to happen to myself in my lifetime. Most of what I hear consists of places to go. I think it’s normal to have a wish list, but I didn’t understand why it’s called a “bucket list”. why? What do you do when it’s full? And where are you going with that bucket? I think it’s depressing to think that life is about filling a bucket with water and finally kicking it out.

When I eloped decades ago, my husband and I studied the odds of our unusual bond. I know that many, if not most, couples swim with the concept of “forever” from the beginning. But far more often, when we wanted our thoughts to withstand daily scrutiny, he and I were very life-cycle conscious. and other living things”. So, I decided to make a list of things I would like to learn together. It was a “learn together list” or “LTL”. It’s not as sexy as a ‘bucket list’, but if you stick with me, I might be able to convince you to make your own LTL.

One on our list was learning about animals. At first, it wasn’t about loving animals. In fact, it was about why we didn’t love them, and it bothered us both deeply. They shared the strange habit of finding themselves one of millions of species trapped in the labyrinths of planets where they live. That habit served as a “refuge” for us humans to escape from the guilt that overwhelms all other species, but more than that, there are millions of other ways to live. It was also an irrefutable reminder.

Checking “Learn About Animals” on our list can mean going to just one place, observing animals, talking to an expert who has studied animals for life, or just learning about animals. It wasn’t even about reading a book. It was everything and more. We wanted to learn “natural selection”. An incredible insight that Charles Darwin had of how natural life, across generations and places, creatively produces life with different powers. So we had to stop buying furniture and went on a trip to the Galapagos with a scientist. When we went there, we not only observed how natural selection makes sense and explains a lot about the progression of biological life, but we also observed that everything wild and raw I also gained lasting respect for

We have become increasingly fascinated by the ‘otherness’ of non-human creatures and impressed by their connection to ‘others’. We read a lot of books about animals and had a lot of very interesting conversations with scientists who spend most of their lives studying animals. He and I exchanged our own awe and confusion about what we encountered about these other lives. Living in huge houses, most humans don’t realize that being human is just one way to live (or at least act as one). .

Fast forward to today reading a book by the brilliant science writer Ed Yong. A vast world: how animal senses reveal hidden realms around usIt’s been years since my husband died and as he calculated it’s been 12 years since we started our lives together. I told him in my head that salmon can smell entering the water they were born in, that elephants can find water buried beneath them, and that the more food you cover the bucket the better. I found myself telling him that I had learned that I could smell odors containing Ants are so dependent on pheromones that if they stick to themselves, they die from exhaustion. A snake’s forked tongue has to do with the three-dimensional way it perceives the direction in which each “spike” captures scent. Bees can stand on flowers to detect the sweetness of their nectar, and catfish have taste buds spread across a scaleless membrane from head to tail.

We had an item on our list called “learning about animals,” but even after all this adventure, we never really checked it. I think it’s because I realized that learning something while doing it is a bottomless pit. That love is a bottomless pit. And that life is a bottomless pit too, because the way he loved me and learned with me flowed into my life list that I now share with those I adventure with.

If you really learn, love, and live to your fullest, you will never kick the bucket by ticking off an item on your list. – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She is the author of two of her books, ‘Science Solitaire’ and ‘Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire’. To contact her, please use [email protected].