I have my quills, so does pepper. We bark, growl and shiver in attempts to scare off others so that we feel less scared. We don’t actually feel safer or anything but it’s a natural instinct. Prefrontal cortex bullshit. Unlucky draw. Twist of fate. Oh, maybe Napoleon complex.
Sometimes, I am so frustrated with her. I become angry and feel like giving up. She will relentlessly and belligerently attack anyone or anything that approaches her without being invited. But honestly, who waits to be invited these days? In this hyper connected, uber competitive environment, no one waits to be cordially invited and escorted to one’s seat. You bitch and moan until someone hears you, knowingly take up a controversial position, wage a war against anything that seems interesting. But that’s beside the point and I digress…
The point is I do the same. I may not bark but act with similar intention and instinctive conclusion. I hide sometimes, bark sometimes, but most of the times, shiver while wasting so much energy putting up a guard around my fragile being. Yet, when my pepper does it without her control over her prefrontal cortex part of her brain, I get frustrated and angry and cannot begin to fathom why she continuously does this to herself.
I’m chronically fatigued, feel weak and defeated. My body is unfortunately as sturdy as that wine glass you get from a dollar store. But that’s not it. I can feel my soul is always on the watch for seemingly imminent attacks of all sorts. I assume the worst. It’s a draining process, and a very straining one at that. Aimlessly wondering around, starved for stimulation of all sorts, it’s like a non functional battery that drains itself out trying to figure out how to run properly before it’s even in a working mode. The little mental energy I have left is hovering over every little thing as if to watch for some suspicious activities and lay out an attack first. Wasted effort, I think so.
I take pepper out for a walk. She starts barking at every living thing. Oh and sometime non living things that resemble the look of the living. She loves trees, flowers, grass and the smell of freshly mowed lawn. She rolls around, smells and feels every dirt, rock and soil with careful and insightful inspection. Pepper is a great lover of nature and she takes her time, slowly and gradually, to get to know the things she loves.
Barking is one thing, but she does have a really high pitched, screeching voice. It even scares me sometimes. She does truly let others know when she is extremely and very often, disturbed. It takes a very long time to gain her trust and she will not let her guard down easily. Most of the time, she will keep barking. But what can you do? it’s not something that can be taught overnight. It can be practiced and learned with great focus but it’s an instinctive, visceral reaction on her part. Yes I don’t want her to be a nuisance to anyone. But let’s just say, one is extremely sensitive (as a lot of people are) and senses danger or discomfort in a certain situation. Should I let others know or keep quiet? Isn’t it better I communicate my sense of uncomfortableness (not in the direct sense of incessant barking) and try to find a way to cope rather than being blind or forcing myself upon a silence mode?
Pepper is truly an amazing friend. She is loyal, low maintenance (ahem), down to earth, wears her emotions on her sleeve (or collar) and very clear (too vocal, sometimes) on her needs and wants. So she’s really loud and direct, not much of ‘introspective thinker’ but otherwise pretty good pal to have hanging around.
Humans refer to the gap between realized self and ideal self as a mean of self improvement. Assuming (which isnt true) that everyone is as serious and dedicated to his or her betterment in terms of self improvement whether it is mental health, social skills, intellectual ability or interests in current affairs, the goal is to minimize that gap. Also another popular and wrongfully taxing generalization would be that all people seek to strenuously strive to be efficient in our processes, socially affable in all settings, proactive in all activities we undertake and lead a well rounded, responsible and consequential life, eventually becoming superhuman, the best version of yourself.
And yes, I’m a huge proponent actually. I think you should definitely push for your maximized potential and in doing so, I feel that the journey itself will be very fruitful and eye-opening experience for everyone. Yet, I also believe it’s a huge misconception and dangerous notion to push upon everyone to follow, especially if it’s not self-initiated and guided by unrealistic goals and pace.
Not everyone has to be and is not an introspective thinker, philosopher, an astute, sharp observer/judge of their own character. Even if they tried, they would have bias, flaws and errors in their conclusion. Some people are just outright unable to see the blatant shortcomings about themselves and deny it fervently. It’s hard, and frankly not the most fun thing to do. It’s demoralizing and belittling at times, and you might even develop some kind of self-hatred to an extent. Introspective thinking, or attempting to be a ‘philosopher/logist’ is quite a dangerous, futile, and ungrounded way to get your bearings around.
However, as Descartes said, I think therefore I am. However futile, biased, ungrounded it maybe, humans think. We think about ourselves, the others, the world, the everything in between. Yet the way we react doesn’t seem to differ much from our furry friends. So it begs me to question if the thinking will lead to a different action, different outcome, different self? Seems like a huge waste of time and effort on thinking, betterment and closing the gap if it won’t even have a tangible impact at the end, does it? In fact, isn’t it just better to be just who we are and enjoy every little moment (every outing, every meal and little snippets of treats in Pepper’s case) and act(as petulant and impatient we may seem) according to our senses? Aside from how we may be perceived and judged accordingly (which ultimately is not the highest of priority, except for some people), wouldn’t we be better off being our natural self, rather than incessantly pressuring and trying to change ourselves to become ‘better’?
Certainly I believe thinking and being mindful of our own reactions and actions will guide us to have more sensitivity, empathy and meaning in our words and actions every day. I’m not saying we should all stop processing any type of analysis in our brain and act as if we were animals in survival mode. But I think, sometimes, and oftentimes, thinking part is overrated. Dogs learn by positive reinforcement, information processing and repetitive excersise or experience of different situations. Dogs can even change or improve their reactions to their worst triggers by desensitization or other coping mechanisms.
Maybe we need to lay off on thinking a bit. And just practice being mindful of little triggers, sources of irritation, anger, frustration perhaps terror. Thinking about our fragile being, all the external threats and sources of danger won’t really help you to be calm or prevent you from running into all sorts of bad experiences. You can put your guard up…but it’s not like it’s going to be a Chinese wall. Being mindful of your limitations, learning to be okay and (surprisingly) content with your shortcomings (and strength), building our own coping mechanisms, establishing clear expectations and setting boundaries around your comforts and discomforts and communicating frequently, carefully, and truthfully (since we have many ways of doing so, aside from barking and growling, although that seems to be the popular choice when we are emotional) would be a better, more reliant way to co-exist..
I’m working on it and so is Pepper. There’s no guarantee and results may vary. But you know, great things ‘can’ happen for the hopefuls.
