This morning just as I was unlocking my bike from the bike racks, a gentleman came up and apologetically wanted to move his bike (which was next to mine) out of the way. On both handlebars of his bike, he had two heavy plastic bags. As he was moving the bikes out the way, I peeked into one of the bags, and noticed that it was full of rotting vegetables. What’s that for, I asked.
Oh, it’s for feeding the pigs he said. He explained that he was off to feed some pigs. He said that feeding pigs is delightful. Looking after pigs and feeding them is something that we, as humans, have done for millennia, and as a result watching them eat is calming and reassuring, like watching a fire or a stream. It was a bizarre new insight for me, but seemed evidently true.
In that moment, I recollected to him how some of my favourite childhood memories were going to a forest in Germany with my grandfather, and with a huge bucket of apples and throwing them in the mud and then watching the wild boars arrive and greedily devour everything – pushing each other and hungrily digging their snouts in the mud till it was all gone in no time. Come to think about it, I even wrote a story about my it for my daughter.
He was happy to hear my experiences and then told me that he was feeling miserable earlier in the year and feeding these pigs brought him great joy.