Episode #60

[YinYang]

I'm sorry, but you can't control me either, or make me be nice.

Diana, I think we are very different, you and I. The way I experienced your post, is I was telling a story which happened to me, and you were going "hush-hush, none of that please". That's control in my view, control which came from 'you'. Do you sit around a fire with people, and the stories go from one to the other, and say "oooh no-no please, don't tell that story! Next!" Can you see how that's dismissive? I have no desire to control you, and no desire to "make you nice". I'm actually surprised when you say things like that, when you read that in my posts, like the other day when you said "you don't have that much power over me"... it left me a little perplexed.

I also think you underestimate people's intelligence, as if such a story would suddenly swing them against animals, or engender feelings of separation between them and animals... the people here have lived on planet earth, they have all heard stories of dangerous dogs, or experienced it themselves. They are not of such limited intellect that they would now colour the entire animal kingdom with such a story.

I'm a story teller, I tell lots of stories. I like other story tellers too, they spice up life, make it more entertaining and interesting. Sometimes I exaggerate, like saying the other day that you might as well have slapped a countdown clock in the corner, because it makes it funny, colourful. That's how I would tell the story to a friend sitting across from me, because it makes it funny, and it would cause us both to laugh. I'm good at making people laugh, it's one of my gifts. They sometimes beg me to stop, because their stomach muscles hurt too much.

I don't share in your despair over the conditions we currently have here on earth (a lot of your posts have that vibe), because I have learned a long time ago that such an outlook doesn't serve me well, or anyone else for that matter. I prefer to have a light heart, to laugh, to see the humour in it all. These days we laugh about how Rocky used to run through windows as if there was nothing in his path, it was so bizarre. My dad has never replaced that many windows. We laugh because it makes us a little lighter to choose to see the humour and the lightness in a situation that was out of our control, and fraught with trauma and tears.

As for the domestication of dogs and cats, I think A LOT more light has come from it than dark. Pets have a wonderful and healing effect on people. They lighten people's loneliness who are living alone, they are people's friends and companions. There's a reason we call a dog "man's best friend". You see animals in captivity, I see joy, laughter, humour and companionship. Different perspectives I suppose.