Vlog: hike and philosophy with my four dogs

Hello everyone. My name is Proilos, also known as Pro. I have not done a video in a while and some of you have been asking me, hey, how is it going, what's up, and so on. Everything is fine. Of course, if you check my website prodilars.com, you will notice that I am active as ever. And if you also check uh the changes I make to my git controlled projects, you will see that every day I do something. Anyway, what I am about to do today is just tour you around my mountain. I am out on one of my usual long walks with my four dogs. In case you don't know, I had two dogs which are now about 10 years old each and during the summer I got two puppies and so the puppies are now 6 months old. Let me switch to the rear camera and you will see what I am seeing and then I will also tell you the news. So doing it now and I have to remain silent for a second. Actually let me also do the 0.5 zoom which gives us a better perspective. So, one of the dogs, one of my dogs is Atlas. You saw him somewhere there. Now, the light is not really good. We will see him a bit later. So, Atlas had a tumor and uh I took him to the vet clinic where he got a surgery for the removal of the tumor. And uh the doctor also uh checked everything his blood and everything and uh gave me uh syrup that I am administering twice a day. And uh now the dog is doing well. He is recovering. He has this cone on his head so that he doesn't try to uh lick the wound or anyhow interfere with it. And uh this cone will remain on his head for the next uh 10 days or so. I will check again with the doctor and we will see. Um where is he? So here he is Atlas with the cone on his head. He's still getting used to it. So of course he is a bit clumsy right now. Uh but uh he is adapting gracefully. He can manage. So Atlas is the one we see over there. Uh, next to him is Orion, the white dog. He went into that vineyard. And Milan, his brother. They are always together. His brother and litter mate. So, they are littermates. Uh, they have been together since day one. And so, here we see Risu, my other elder dog. This is Orion. And Milan. Where is Milan? I see him there. Look at him. is hiding in the grapevine and they are all having a good time. They are getting along well. By the way, uh the vineyard here, these are the final days of this year's vintage. It was not a good season uh in terms of yields. uh owning to the drought. Uh we have been experiencing severe drought for the past 2 years especially this year the effects were really bad. uh we didn't get enough precipitation during uh the winter time and we got almost zero from April until uh two days ago like uh two days ago in uh it was the final day of November. No, what is the date today? Anyway, the 30th of November we got the first rainfall in my part of the island in my part of Cyprus. So that was in a sense a blessing but in another sense it was unsettling to know that that was the first day of rain in November. Hopefully December will uh have more rain. Uh the forecast is that starting from tomorrow and for at least a week there will be rainfall. uh during the weekend the phenomena will be much more intense. Of course this remains to be seen. Uh in past uh months we have had similar forecasts that turned out to be um off the mark. So we will see whether this time they are accurate. Uh where I am now is not too far away from my hat. I am in my valley here in the Tro mountain range of Cyprus. Where I am right now, it's a trail in the mountains of course. And what you see to my right hand side are some oak trees. Um fairly large I would say fairly large oak trees. And we can see uh how it is over here. Uh Orion in the foreground. So yeah, very beautiful, very nice. And the area we are approaching is um at the edge of the land that was burned. So this specific area uh was uh completely devastated by the wildfires of the past summer. Uh you may have checked the videos I did at the time. The video or one uh I did at the time. It was uh a unique experience. Uh hopefully it will not happen again but we will see. And what we are doing now is going up the mountain folks. uh fairly up uh and um Atlas cannot cover long distances because uh he needs to recover from the um surgery. But you can see he is still full of energy. So of course when I say he cannot cover long distances, I mean my kind of long distances, what we usually do, but he is still good for an hour or so. Of course, I haven't tested, but we will find out. I will be checking on him. We see here it's a clear day, a clear evening. The morning uh was there was overcast. There were clouds, but now things are looking nice. Uh the sky is blue, the sun is setting, and it's a peaceful evening. And my dogs are over there. I don't know if they are caught on camera. Very nice view by the way. Look at this beautiful scene. Granted, the camera is not doing its service, but it looks really nice. And Milan is right there. Beautiful. Let's continue. Here on my right hand side, we see uh querus kifera. This is a different type of oak. Um what we saw earlier are oak trees whereas this one is a shrub. So it is considerably smaller. Here what we see are the fruits of the dog rose rosa canina. Uh like all uh roses, it has a a beautiful flower, pink in color. And uh this uh fruit is used for jams to make jams and stuff. I haven't tried it myself, but from what I hear, it is decent. So yeah, maybe that will happen at some point. Um but otherwise what we see over here are uh querus kifera. It's those oak shrubs. And uh yeah, we see here some bushes. This is kistos uh kis incanus I believe is this one. Or maybe it's keticus. I'm not sure which variety it is. Of course, what keticus? This is cyprus. So this is gist cypriicus and I say so here is a pine tree. Uh there are two types of pine tree in Cypus. We see here a larger version of this. We have pinus brutia and pinus The Negra variety grows at the uh highlands further up at the uh uppermost part of the mountain range. Here we have a Brutia and here we start seeing again the sun is setting so we may not have a good view of it through the camera. I cannot really tell, but over there we see the slopes that have virtually no vegetation left due to the wildfires. And we are going up the mountain. You can see here the earthly colors. Our is the dominant color of Cyprus. When you are looking at the mountains, it is the color you will see the most. I will say is the color of Greece as well. It's like the Greek color is Our and if you want to add a second color to it then it would be blue. So there is that white would be another good option if you consider the stones but I think is more common. We see here there are um those smaller trees over here. I forget how they are called. Actually, those are not trees. They are shrubs. This one here is a tree. This one is a hawthornne. We see its roots over there. Actually, no. A hawthornne is also a shrub. H. Anyway, those trees are called rua in Greek. And there is a famous pop singer called Ruvas. Sagis Ruvas. And Ruvia is the name of this tree. We see it here. This uh green the these green leaves over here these are rules. So they are growing we see from the burnt spots and here is uh from the burnt spots we see that rules are popping up all over the place. Um this is an encouraging sign. Ruv again here it uh goes to show that uh the mountains are healing at least uh in this uh part of the mountain range and uh it goes to show that within a few years everything will be green again. Nature will recover and so will the people. It's a matter of uh time and thus for us people it's a matter of maintaining a sense of perspective so that we can remain patient and not uh panic and not be afraid and not uh rush into conclusions. This, by the way, this idea of the perspective, maybe you can see Atlas there going down the slope. Uh, this idea of the perspective, and of course, Orion and Milan are running after him. This idea of the perspective um applies to everything we do. Let me tell you a story. The other day I was talking to somebody and eventually uh a talking point came up. Actually, let me go see what the dogs are doing. Let's go down this way. Jump. Hop. Very nice. Uh, and what we were talking about eventually was about my living situation, the fact that I reside in the mountains, folks. And you see my kind of world right here. We go down the slope. This is Milan, a very good boy. Here is Atlas Andor. What are they doing? What is this? So, an ancient ancient bone. And of course, he found it because he has a strong sense of smell. But uh he will have to let go of it. Adame. [Laughter] There he is. He pretends to not know anything. So, I won't let him have it. Of course, now he's competing with the other boys and that's why he is protective of it. But let me get it. For me, it's safe to get it because of course I am his uh owner, his handler. You we see here. But uh he is not allowed to have any of it. And uh I will lead them up the mountain and then I will throw it as far as I can. And then hopefully they won't rush after it, folks. But let's see. Let me get rid of it. Okay, that was a good throw, I must say. Anyway, to my point, let's get back to the main road. And yeah, that thing was dirty, but what can we do? To my point, perspective. And this discussion I had with that uh person. Uh we were talking about where I live and in case you don't know I have built a house. I call it a hut. Uh but it's really becoming a house thanks to all the work I do there. And this house is uh off-grid. It's outside any builtup area. It's not too far from a village, but it's still outside of it. And to reach the hut, you descend into a valley. And if you do that in the evening, there are no lights anywhere, no city lights, right? There is no road. It's uh roads like this, dirt roads. It's broken roads like this one. And so you think to yourself, where the heck I am going? What is this descent going to lead me to? Right? And so this person was like, "Are you not afraid to live down there?" And I'm like, "Look, it's all a matter of perspective because I used to live in a city. I know how it is. And I'm telling you now with the benefit of hindsight that I am actually more afraid to not witness the moonrise. I am more afraid to be denied of the night sky. I am more afraid of the city that denies me the sky. I am more afraid of not ever accessing an open vista again and of having my horizons limited by my immediate environment by an environment that in a sense we created to function as our cage. So I am like why would I be afraid? Look at me. Look at me here. I'm in my element. Of course, I am physically capable to be here. Like in the same way, I'm physically capable of walking up this mountain. You see, it's quite steep. But I'm also physically capable in the sense of doing the work to build the hut and to live there and to deal with the rigors and to rise to the occasion. But all that means nothing if you don't have the right mindset. If you don't have the patience for it, if you don't have this sense of perspective which grounds you. And so this sense of perspective it what is what gives you it's what endows you with mental fortitude. So I was like, do I look like I am scared? I am thriving here. This is great. And it's not because I am anyhow special. People have been doing this for millennia. Like for the vast majority of our history as a species, this is what we were doing. the city lights and this sense of safety we now have is just a very very very recent phenomenon. So again I don't see anything wrong with what I am doing and I don't think I am special in any way. So this was it folks. It was a sense of the perspective. It was a sense of how I approach it. And I think everybody can do this. I don't think you need to be superhuman or somehow extraordinary to do what I am doing. Maybe the extraordinary um component of this phenomenon is how out of the ordinary it is, but not because it is difficult, but because we think we shouldn't be doing it anymore. But we think as much because in a sense we forgot where we came from. We forgot our beginnings. We forgot uh our place in the world. We we lost touch with our past, with our history. In a sense, we forgot a little bit of who we are. And I think in that regard, in that regard, what I am doing is to reconnect, to be human again the way we have always been and uh to do something that is actually normal, standard, common, easy even. We continue up the mountain, folks. So you can see here I was uh showing you the slopes over there and you can see how they have been birthed down. You can see the colors of early December. I forget what's the day today. But uh you can see the colors here. It's uh Thursday, early December 2025, whatever is today. I don't know the 4th or something like that. But the point is that for us here, this is late autumn. For us here, winter starts after the winter solstice. So it starts basically from the 21st of December onward. Roughly speaking, of course, it's not exact science, but this is the idea. So our seasons here match the phases of the sun. Very nice. We see it's a we still see a lot of green, right? For example, here we see the roses. And I actually have such roses at home as well. Uh these are the flowers. The rose when you hear of the rose, the roses that are aromatic. So, it's those pink flowers, and they have a very, very nice uh smell. Beautiful. Nothing like the flowers, the roses, those red ones that they sell during Valentine's Day. Those are garbage. They They don't have any smell. This thing is the real thing. This is fantastic. So, let's go up the mountain and see where we will end up in. We see here my four dogs already. They feel warm because it's actually not that cold. And we see Orion right here. Atlas is further up. To his left is Milan. And further ahead is Razu. Four very good boys. Four excellent companions. We have been friends for a long time and we spend our days together and part of that involves such long walks. And there is Arian here. Of course, you can see I'm holding the leashes which I have made myself out of rope. So each of them has a leash. I don't use it now. It's there just in case I need it. So, there is that. Where are you going, my friends? Milan. [Laughter] Off he goes. Uh, he's coming. Let's see. Uh, the puppies. So, Milon and Orion are almost 6 months old. 6 months plus a few days. And here is Milan. Milan is about 20 kilos in weight. I don't know about his height, but I would say it's maybe 40, let's say five cm under the withers. Orion is a little bit taller and a little bit heavier as well. Uh maybe 25 kilos. Orion looks closer to Risu in size. And uh so Atlas is the largest and the heaviest. Then we have Azo, then Orion, and then Milan. Okay, let's go this way. Atla. There he is. And of course, he still has to make sense of that cone on his head. He keeps bumping onto stuff. But uh he is uh doing well. And I see him. He has a a good vitality. I see him. He's strong. And I of course asked the doctor about whether we need to make any changes to the lifestyle and he said no keep doing things as usual. So this is what I am doing. Of course I am always monitoring the situation. If I see him that he is struggling to continue, of course we won't continue. I won't take him on a 5-hour walk. Of course not. This is a more casual excursion in my mountains. Look at this folks. By the way, this uh view, look at these colors. We have oer as I was telling you earlier on the ground on either side. We have shades of gold culminating in green and yellow. And in the distance they are complemented by light blue going towards really really dark blue which blends into brown. It's so beautiful folks. This is amazing. It takes my breath away. And back to what I was saying earlier. I would be afraid to be in a place where I cannot experience this. That is real fear to me. Not uh to live in nature. Why would you ever be afraid of that? To me, that's a perversion of how the world is. More uh roses here. And here we see caper. This thing here is caper. Uh my dogs of course are pillaging the vineyards. That's not a problem in practice because we are past the vintage. Uh these grapes themselves are not good anymore. they won't uh produce any wine with them. Needless to say that they cannot be eaten or well they can but they won't be uh pleasant to consume. So there is that. On the point of grapes since I am discussing this now humans didn't actually invent wine or raisins uh they just stumbled upon them. For example, let's see here we have mil. What are you doing there my friend? So here of course uh the birds have also been pillaging them but fundamentally here let's see we can find a resin here. Let's see. So you will see here this is a resin. You see it looks like a a prune and prunes of course are the same way. This is a resin. Like if you eat it, it's exactly how a resin would be. Similarly, if you eat one of those uh grapes that uh has been pierced by the what's it called? The beck the peak. I forget it now. Uh of a bird, you will taste um alcohol because here at this opening is where fermentation happens. Now, I'm not saying you should be doing that. I'm not saying this is healthy or safe for you. What I am saying is that if you do try it, you will definitely taste alcohol. Uh speaking from experience of course. So there is uh that more ru here and of course more grape vines here. They do all this work of setting them up. Basically they got nothing out of this. no crops, no yields, uh nothing uh worthwhile. They won't be making any wine with this. The government is subsidizing uh the large uh uh uh landlords like the uh big wine, let's call them. Of course, uh the pretext is that we do it for the people of the countryside and for uh the cohesion of the country such that there is growth in every part of it blah blah blah. In practice, it's a it's just a bailout to big business. None of the little guys sees any of that money. But anyway, I pretend to not know, to not see, and I continue. Look at the sunset. Beautiful. And we keep going up this mountain, folks. And here is Atlas. And we continue a pace. And of course, we have to be careful to mind our steps because this is a treacherous path. You can see it here. Of course, the land has been eroded. We have to be careful. Let's see. Where are my two other dogs? Arian is there. Raju is next to him. And we continue. So the land has been eroded. We have to be very careful. And we continue this way. Atla. So they have to come this way. And there we go. And we see, of course, the cause of the erosion is that at this specific spot, water flows. And we can see it goes down there whenever it rains. So this means that the people who brought tractors to create tracks here didn't know the terrain. And of course, they did a sloppy job as a result. Because if you know the terrain, you understand where water flows uh are. water flows that are present, but also those that are latent, those that only happen after a rainfall, a heavy rainfall. So, it's those streams that only occur then. And if you know the terrain, you know these as well. You can tell from the shape of the land. But then again, if you are frivolous with your tools and your machinery, you just go in and you think you know everything and you just make a mess of things. But that's how it is. Then they will be paid to fix it, of course. So yeah, good luck with that. We see that uh the light is getting more dim as uh the minutes go by. And I now see my camera. I have been recording already for 30 minutes and 15 seconds. And the count continues as do we. As I said, I don't have anything to talk you to you about folks. It's just a tour of my mountains with my four dogs. Life here is simple. Uh I would say it's uneventful, but uh I am not passing judgment to that. So I don't mean to say it's uneventful, therefore it is bad. No, I'm not saying that. It's just a statement of fact. Uh it is uneventful in the sense that here there isn't any of the usual events you would find in other places where there are more people. For example, here there are no concerts, there are no uh um theater acts, there is no cinema, and there are no sports events. And basically, it's a really quiet place. Of course, you can get all that if you drive for 20 minutes or so or 30 minutes maybe. So, it's not like it's uh in the middle of nowhere, but still if you are on foot, you won't experience much of that. At least not without considerable effort and commitment. I heard some partridges. So, of course, my dogs tried to catch them, but you cannot actually catch a partridge like that. It's very, very, very unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. So, it's a quiet place for me. That's totally okay. I mean, even if I was living in a city, I wouldn't really care about all those thing. Maybe I would go once in a blue moon, but normally I wouldn't. Um, I don't really enjoy them. Of course, if it's with friends, I will go with my friends because I enjoy their company, but not really the event itself. So, here are my dogs. Very good boys. Atlas with the cone on his face. Uh, I hope the surgery is successful. The tumor won't metastatize and that he lives many more years. Uh, a dog of his size has a life expectancy of 12 to 15 years, give or take. Uh so he is close to 10. So let's hope he lives up to the maximum but uh it's not something we can control ultimately especially with cancer. You have no power over it. What you can do is uh deal with it. You have to uh manage and uh you have to be there and uh take care of your dog in this case but of loved ones in general. uh take care, be supportive and uh hope for the best in full knowledge that uh you are not the dominant factor in this case like the outcome is not a function of your doings. Um at least you don't have the major contribution in the outcome. So yeah, there is that. Uh you don't feel it now, but the temperature is uh dropping. I can feel the wind getting cooler. I can also sense the humidity in the air, which foreshadows the intense weather phenomena that we are expecting. Um, of course, when you live in nature for a long time and you are paying attention to your surroundings, you get a better sense of the weather as well. Not to sh not to say that you can actually have an accurate weather forecast, but you have a much better understanding of what is happening within the next few hours. So, that you do have for sure. And I am getting better and better at it as I do at um other things. Uh knowledge of the sort you won't find in books. practical knowledge, skills of survival, if you will, like uh the sort of skills that a wild beast has and which you only acquire uh through continuous exposure to the rigors of the wilderness. And this is what I am doing and I will continue doing. Here are my dogs. They are running up and down the mountains. They are having a very good time. Atlas really bumps into stuff with this cone on his face uh on his head. So yeah, there is that really funny. So yes, this is it folks. we continue uh soon we will reach a point where we can turn back and we will descend back to the hut. And thus ends uh another day and uh we uh look forward to the next sunrise and uh to the experiences to come while appreciating the experiences we have had and each of them is uh worthwhile. I will continue for a few more minutes until we reach the point where we start descending. But we still have ways to go actually. So there is that. Of course, we could keep going up the mountain. For me, that's perfectly fine. But uh I think it's uh safe to not uh exert Atlas uh too much today. Eventually, we will return back to our usual rhythms. Uh but uh I'm not in a rush. One step at a time. Very nice. The color palette has slightly changed. It has become a bit cooler if you compare to the shot I was describing earlier. You will see that again we have aer but right now it has a light blue tint. If you pay close attention and you can see that the yellow slashgold uh on the left hand side of the road is actually blended with a very faint touch of blue or cyan. And in the distance again we have more of the same phenomenon. The darker colors that uh go from light blue to darker blue and then uh down to dark green and brown. So there is that. I saw a tractor over there. Hopefully nobody is there. like I would be really surprised if there is anybody working at this hour but you never know. So of course if there is I will need to take care of the dogs but otherwise we continue and we see how it goes. Uh I think the dogs would have already alerted me to the presence of another person here. They would have all barked. The fact that they did not means that we continue. There is nobody here. And um I'm seeing some pine trees here. They have a vivid green color. The color alone can tell you the age of a tree. Granted, it's not the only factor. You can tell from other factors as well, but this is an easy way to spot young trees from a distance. Uh basically uh older pine trees will have a more subdued color such as the pine tree you may be able to discern in the distance right where the middle of my frame is now. Uh, right there is a pine tree and from what I can tell here, it has a darker green color, which alone suggests that the tree is older than the ones we saw back there. Of course, I could tell as much by the fact that it is also larger. So, larger means that it has lived for longer and I could infer as much from uh the size alone. But color again is uh helpful in making that judgment. The dogs are running. The puppies are running. Everybody's having a good time. The puppies are growing as well. Uh as I said, they are about 6 months old. They will continue to grow. I don't think they will change all that much. Of course. Um, they could grow considerably, but uh, I expect Orion, like the white dog, to be about the size of Atlas, maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more. We cannot say for sure. And I expect Milan to remain the smallest of the pack or maybe reach up to the size of Risu, but I would be surprised if Milan becomes larger than that. So yeah, here we are. And all my dogs, look at them. They are exploring the mountain. The for dogs, this is basically paradise, folks. This is the best place they could be. They are running around off leash. And by the way, um the camera doesn't do service to this sunset. What I see is a cooled down red um which has hints of magenta and purple. And there is this pink color blending in with uh blueish gray and the pink leading up to lighter tones almost white and then it becomes cyan again. It's so beautiful. It's so amazing, folks. It's so nice. Like, why wouldn't you want to have this experience every day? Like, why wouldn't you want to be exposed to this awe? Like, it's so great. Like, I cannot hold my excitement. It's so amazing because this awe like these open vistas are not just goodlooking. They also put in perspective your life. It's easy when you live in closed spaces like you go from your apartment to your office back to the apartment and you always live in those tiny spaces where there is no horizon where there are no sunsets, no moonrises, no crows celebrating another day. None of that. It's very easy when you are in that world and when you experience this day in day out to eventually develop the same kind of outlook, tunnel vision effectively, an outlook of basically a dead end and you feel disempowered. You feel desperate. You have some sense of dread that you cannot even name. It's elusive and you have this incoet um sense of unsettlement like you cannot actually formulate it. You don't know what is going on like what is wrong with me? Why am I like this? Why am I battered and uh beaten up in such a way? What happened? Why am I worn down? And I think uh it's because you don't have a sense of perspective. Like when you experience this like it makes no sense to think that there is no something out there something other than what is immediately here because you see it. You see that there is more to this world. You can explore it. Where you see you can go. You can explore it. And once that gets internalized, it is internalized through these awesome experiences through aesthetics. Once it is exter internalized through aesthetics, it is eventually internalized as second nature. It is eventually internalized as your new way of living living. your new way of seeing the world, seeing in the literal sense like what I am seeing now, but also seeing in the figurative sense of how I interpret phenomena, how I associate to what uh is out there, what is my place in the world. And of course when your world is open, when your world is vast like this, then of course you simply don't suffer from close to phobia. It's basically that. How could you how could you be afraid of closed spaces when what you experience is the opposite? When what you experience is openness. open-endedness, beauty as far as the eye can see and diversity, diversity throughout. Diversity which nevertheless is consistent. You know that what applies here also applies there. What applies there also applies further away. What applies to one part of the cosmos applies to the cosmos at large. But you know this because you are experiencing it, not because you read about it in some book. Because then you are distant from that knowledge. It hasn't sunk in. It's not at the level of your gut. It's still at the level of your head. It hasn't become internalized. It hasn't reached the point where it's inalienable, inextricably bound up with your being. You reach that stage through continuous exposure, continuous training, if you will, to the point where you develop automaticity, where things just happen without you thinking about them. It's your new normal. And so this is the new normal I established all those years ago. And of course now it's it's not new anymore. It's the normal. This is my world. This is my nature. I am grounded in this world. It gives me stability. It equips me with uh the strength to uh go to rise to the challenge and to go where I must and to do it without hesitation without fear to be unequivocal and unyielding and to not flinch not flinch for an inch. And I do it and it's not hard. It's not hard at all. Like it's effortless. There is lightness. Exactly. Because it became second nature. That's the whole point of becoming second nature. You don't have to force it. For as long as you are forcing something into becoming, it's not there yet. It hasn't become yet. Once it has become, once it is the finished article, it's there. You don't need to force it anymore. And the sun is fading. We can see a glimpse of it there. The red is more intense now on one side on the upper side of our star while the lower side is becoming more blue and purple and in a few minutes it will uh disappear from our view. Folks, I said that I will um conclude the video uh once we are on our way down. And of course, I do these walks all the time. And I didn't realize that it's when I say the way down is close, I didn't realize it's actually 20 minutes away because when I was telling you this, it was like on the 30 minute mark and now we are close to the 50-minute mark and we still have ways to go. Here are the puppies. They are running. They're having a good time. Here is Atlas as well. a good boy. He is up to no good. He is uh stealing. Of course, he's not stealing, but uh we see some grapes here. Actually, they are not looking that bad, I must say. Depending on where the grapes are, like if they are not exposed to direct sunlight, they will of course last longer. But again, I wouldn't recommend anybody tries this. But of course the dogs they uh have different tolerance than people. Here I see wire. They've brought wire. Probably is to support all these uh grape vines over here. Uh these are new plantations and I imagine they will bring rods and then use the wire to tie everything together. So yeah, good luck with that. Hopefully the weather will uh be more favorable and the coming years will be years of um better yields. But we will see here they cut down some of those rules that I mentioned earlier. They have lined them up here. They will burn them. Of course, the fact that they cut down their rules uh maybe because they needed to clear the area. Uh the thing with those trees though is that they grow uh quickly. They are uh quite resilient. So the fact that they have been cut down doesn't mean that they will also be eliminated. That will not happen easily. So we continue. Uh, I think it's about uh 5 more minutes until I reach the point where we are moving downwards in earnest uh down uh the slope and back to our house. Of course, I could just go from anywhere, right? And jump off the the cliffs and stuff like I can definitely do that, but uh that wouldn't be a good idea given that I am holding the selfie stick. It's safer to just go like, "Oh, partridges." Look at that. Oh, wow. What are those guys up to? Look at me. No, those dogs are up to no good. Of course, uh they all have uh a hunting instinct, a prey drive. Um they are animal aggressive uh especially of course to anything that they could eat. Uh but they are animal aggressive in general. They will be aggressive towards other dogs, for example, which is normal by the way. Uh same sex by the way, aggression, this is normal. Uh it's how dogs are. They are territorial and they are competitive in this regard and they will not tolerate strangers. Um the fact that I was able to integrate new members into the pack is because I am a capable handler like I have established my authority over the elder dogs. So you saw earlier how I took uh the bone from Atlas. I wasn't risking any injury. There was zero chance that Atlas would attack me because of course I have trained him. He understands that if I intervene, it's because he shouldn't be doing it. It's uh safe for him not to do it. But because I have that kind of relationship with my dogs, when I was bringing the puppies into the house, there was no chance that the older dogs would rebel and try to assert dominance because the older dogs know that I am the top dog effectively, not them. Of course, they also know that I am not a dog. Actually, they do understand the difference. They can tell apart their species from people but in a manner of speaking they know that I am the sovereign and thus they don't try to uh question my authority. Of course I am fair. I am not dictatorial. I am fair and uh I know how to handle the intercine dynamics. For example, when I give them a treat, I still respect the hierarchy they have between them. Meaning that I will first give something to Atlas, then to Risu, and then to the puppies. And because the puppies are more or less on the same footing, I will more partridges. Oh, look at everybody's running. Look at them. They are having such a good time. But anyway, because the puppies are on an equal footing, um I will uh treat them in turns. So, one time Milan will get first, the other time Orion will get first, a third time they will get it at the same time. That's how it is. They will be treated simultaneously. So, yeah, that's how it is, folks. We see them. The dogs there. Milan is down there. I don't know if you even see him on camera. I can see him with the naked eye. Uh, of course, I could switch to the 1.0 uh zoom instead of the 0.5 I have, but I think the 0.5 is a more natural view. It doesn't distort uh the perspective as much. The 1.0 actually makes things in the distance look strange. Like, it's a really weird thing. Of course, the dogs will come. Let's see Atlas. The dogs are coming. Atlas with the cone on his head is very cute. Um, we continue and uh at around this point is when we will uh start heading down the mountain. I wasn't expecting this to be 1 hour long. Of course, we still have ways to go to reach my house. We still have I don't know 35 minutes plus uh to get there, but we are not in a hurry. And of course, we just warmed up. Uh it's not like uh we broke a sweat and we can keep doing this for hours. Actually, I would say that Atlas can easily do this for another hour easily. Even though I would uh rather not have him do it, but I can see him uh full of energy. They are back there and they will join me. No problem. And yeah, we see the colors. They are getting darker and darker as the night beckons. Folks, there is Orian Razu is further up ahead. I hear somebody closing up on me. It's my good boy, Atlas. And the only bad boy right now is Milan, who hasn't showed up yet, but he will. No problem. He is uh he can take care of himself. And uh generally, I have a leer way of handling them. Meaning that when I know it's safe, I give them uh the chance to try and fail. Basically, I let them explore the world and the limits of their strengths. I don't need to handhold them, to spoon feed them, to micromanage them. Of course, I also have good situational awareness, meaning that I know when to do this and when it would be dangerous to do as much. And so, I act accordingly. These are my mountains, folks. And uh I don't know what's the time actually right now. Um but it's getting closer to 6:00 p.m. Uh but I don't know exactly what it is because also um when I am at home because I am at the base of the valley, it gets darker earlier than when you are outdoors. uh at the base of the valley. Basically, I have 1 hour less in the morning. So, let's say the sun rises at 7:00, I see the sunrise close to 8 a.m. and uh the sun sets, let's say, at 6:00. Uh in my place, the um the sunlight hits the solar panels directly. Uh I think the latest is 2 p.m. something like that. So yeah, I lose a lot of time in that regard. Uh but uh I am fine. That's totally okay. And uh on the topic of the solar panel since I mentioned them and I am expecting a new battery to be delivered. It was supposed to come in mid November. It uh was eventually delayed. Uh now I am expecting it to arrive in mid December but I don't know when the electrician will be available to install it. So hopefully before the end of the year otherwise at least I hope uh early 2026 at which point I will have uh electricity virtually all day. I don't know if it will be around the clock, but let's say in practice it will be uh all the time whenever I need it. So, who is this bad boy? There is a Milan. Ah, very good. Very good. And of course, we now see the moon over there. Uh, it's it's not exactly full, but it's basically there. I don't know if we can see it with the camera. And maybe by getting closer we will be lucky enough to see the moon. And then I will uh leave you with that uh image which is an image of openness, an image of hope, an image of u the vastness of this world. a vastness that is all around us and a vastness that if we internalize uh we can reach uh heights we would otherwise consider unreachable. I don't know if uh the clouds will disperse and we will get to see the moon in we will get a good view of the moon but uh we will see uh I will check once we get past this oak tree. I will try to zoom in on that and then we can call it a day and then uh we will me and the dogs we will head back home folks. Uh let's see. Let me go here. Of course, now at this angle I cannot see the moon. Let's go a bit there where Milan is and a bit further away from there actually. And we will get a good view of this beauty. Let's uh see what we have. And let's see where is it. It should be there. Okay, it's behind the clouds. What can we do? Let me zoom in. I will do the 2x zoom and I will stop talking for a second because whenever I change this, it doesn't capture my voice for whatever reason. Okay, so I did the 2x zoom and you see the moon over there. Well, you don't see it anyway. But can I do more than 2x? Does it have that option? Oh, it has a 10x. Let me do that. Okay. H. It's not glu good. Oh, it's really grainy. It's terrible. Let me go to the 0.5. Okay, this was it, folks. So, let me switch to my camera and say goodbye. So, yeah, this was it, folks. And uh a very nice walk in nature. And uh as I was telling you the vastness of this uh world and um by exposing ourselves to it we can eventually internalize it and make it second nature. And once we do that uh we will be empowered and we will be emancipated from whatever shackles uh have been imposed on us through convention or bad habit. That's all for today folks. Thank you very much for your attention. Take care and goodbye for now. Hello everyone. I just want to do a followup on the video I was doing earlier because I promised you the full moon and now the sky is clear. So, I want to show it to you. Local time is 20 5. And when I stopped recording earlier, it was almost 5 p.m. So, let me switch to the rear camera to show you the full moon and then I will just append this video to the other one. Doing it now. And there it is, the full moon. Let me do a zoom 2x. There it is. Let's do a 10x. Wow. Here it looks like it's the sun. Let's do 4x. Still sunny. It looks 2x. 0.5. Okay, this is actually dark. Yes, of course. Now I am talking to you. But when you are in the wilds and you get to be moon bathed in this way, you are inspired to remain silent and to heed the voice of the great outdoors. And in so doing, you allow yourself the chance to travel, to travel in mental scapes, to travel in mindcapes rather, and to travel mentally and to let go of concerns and petty worries and all the trivialities of everyday life and to think big, to partake in the vastness I was alluding to earlier. And in so doing, if you do this consistently, if you do this in earnest, if you hold nothing back, you are effectively going to allow your soul to be baptized a new, to be unabaptized, and thus to renew its vitality. And once you do that, you will see the world with a new pair of eyes and you will be invigorated to do what you must. And maybe you will be inspired to leave behind the things that are actually weighing you down, that are holding you back. and you will focus on what is essential to you and everything that is in essential you will forget about. That's all for today folks. Thank you very much for your attention. I am leaving you with this beautiful scene and then I will enjoy the full moon on my way back home with my four dogs. Take care. Goodbye and good night from my side.

In this 1-hour video I show one of my usual hikes with my four dogs. I first talk about the surgery Atlas had and then start commenting on my surroundings. This eventually turns into a philosophical commentary on the importance of putting things in perspective. I discuss fear, beauty, and the ease with which we can conduct ourselves once something has been embedded as second nature. Throughout the video I also make asides, such as to describe the vegetation around me and remark on what my dogs are doing. Also read the poem I wrote based on the closing words of this video. "When you are in the wilds" https://protesilaos.com/poems/2025-12-05-when-in-the-wilds/ * * * Find all my publications on my website (philosophy, Emacs, poetry, mechanical keyboards, etc.): https://protesilaos.com