I have a little white dog. His name is Max. Technically, he belongs to my girlfriend and her son but we both agree that he’s MY dog. Or better said, I am HIS human. He even calls me boyfriend, and I swear it’s not weird! 😉
Max does this thing that, sadly, I see too many humans doing these days. He sits behind the big front window of the house perched on a piano bench that mainly serves as his “lookout station” these days. He clocks in to his station around 6AM on the daily and quietly waits.
Unfailingly the quiet is suddenly pierced with a 0-60 rapid escalation of emotion in the form of a barking fit that still startles and annoys the occupants of the household. This barking is always aimed directly at another dog passing by with their human. To Max, the mere presence of another dog near his home and his people causes an otherwise completely quiet and chill dog to lose his mind. Which can some days have a similar effect on his humans who have to sit through his fit.
Max is pretty lucky. He sleeps with his humans. Has an unending supply of treats. And gets 2 walks a day. I am also pretty lucky because most days I get to do both of those walks with him.
Here’s the fascinating thing I have observed with Max. On every walk we invariably pass these same dogs he has barked his face off at and Max suddenly has no voice. He always passes the dogs quickly and sometimes avoids looking their way. Once in a while he even tucks behind me as if to seek protection. Occasionally I will say to him, “Not so tough now that you aren’t behind the glass, are you Max?”
To clarify the previous observation above, I have yet to see an actual human perched on a piano bench barking at neighbors passing by from behind the glass. But I will send you a pic as soon as I do. What I mean, and find really sad, is that there are seemingly bazillions of humans who are just plain mean, divisive, and caustic from behind the glass of their smartphone. Whether it’s on Twitter (still can’t call it X), Facebook, or Instagram many otherwise decent people among us can be swiftly reduced to lesser versions of ourselves incessantly barking hate, anger, and toxicity. I argue that these lesser versions of ourselves are becoming larger parts of who we are and sadly shaping our broader societies into a darker, hateful reality.
Maybe, like my little white dog Max, we all need to get out in our neighborhoods more often and see the humanity of people with whom we share the world. I argue that it’s 10X easier to be a jerk from behind the apparent protection of space and time our digital world affords us than it is to be brash, rude, and mean straight to someone’s face. Maybe that’s because we can see the humanness of the person right in front of us, and maybe, just maybe, we see a little bit of ourselves in them. We all share so much in common but I think the glass makes us forget sometimes.
Honestly, I don’t have a lot of hope for Max, old dog, new tricks and all that, but I feel like we still have a shot as humans to tone the barking down. Get out there. Associate. Say hello. Network. See the better parts of humanity.
We are a pretty awesome species but we seem to sometimes (often?) forget that and get sucked into the cesspools of division, hate, and hyperbolic drama that those who profit from the rage keep filling. Screw them!
I will keep loving Max and we will keep working on being chill and kind. And we hope to see you, and your humanity, on one of our next walks.