Just so you know, I once met a dog that I call Bravo Tico because he was brave and from Costa Rica. I also should point out that not everyone globally agrees on what the word America means. In my opinion, it's a minor disagreement compared to some we have these days.
Photo from yesterday's run. |
I went on a run yesterday at a trail in Juneau and my thoughts drifted to how to help the United States heal. I also tripped on a rock and fell to the ground and scraped my elbow so maybe I should have been thinking less about morality and more about where to place my feet. If you think I came up with a definitive answer to how the United States can heal, you can quit reading. I came up with an abstract painting, not a photograph, so it's a reflection of what reality feels like. I thought about a brief encounter I had with a dog a while back. We can learn a lot from dogs. You can also quit reading if you don't want to read about politics.
I met this dog while staying in a small town on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica several years ago. I woke up early to go on a run. It's odd that I wake up earlier on vacation than I usually do at home but I digress. We were staying in a little cabin by the beach with rain forest inland. My run took me down a dirt road leading into the jungle. At the beginning of my run, I saw a yellow lab lying flat on his back in the middle of the road, slowly wagging his tail from time to time. I trotted past the dog, he looked at me briefly, and continued to slowly wag his tail and sun his balls. I continued to run down the road. About ten minutes later I stopped to listen to a group of howler monkeys scream like mad fiends. I suspect their screams were partly that they didn't like another primate invading their rain forest and partly because that's how howler monkeys have fun. I continued my run and saw some brightly colored birds making a ton of noise. I am not a good birder but I suspect macaws. On my way back to our cabin, the yellow lab was still lying in the middle of the road. I don't know how long it had been but not a short amount of time. My second encounter with yellow dog differed from the first because this time there was a pickup truck coming in opposite direction. I had not seen another human all day. I increased my pace to try and warn the dog off the road before he got hit by a truck but he didn't want to move. He looked up at me, but I guess he liked the feeling of the sun on his balls. The truck driver slowed to a crawl and waved as he eased past me and the yellow lab. The last time I saw the dog, he was still lying in the road, slowly wagging his tail. The United States might heal if we can muster half the courage of that dog.
The dirt road leaves the beach just to the left of the photo |
The dog's courage arose from NOT doing what I (and the truck driver) thought he should do. His courage arose from doing what HE wanted to do. Deep down every person I know wants to live in a compassionate nation, but we get beat down by the gaslighting. Everyday some knucklehead (usually Trump) brings up a new thing to fear and we are supposed act like we aren't being gaslighted. Yesterday, there was a fanfare about the how Canada is taking advantage of the United States. With a straight face some people will forget that Canadians are some of their best friends and that Canada has never been disloyal to the United States. Until now. Why would they trust us now after we kick them for no reason? Tomorrow we will be gaslighted about something else perhaps even more stupid. We are being gaslighted to believe that the Civil War was not about slavery, that women are better off with limited life choices, that police brutality is not a problem for people of color, and that church and state should not be separate. On and on. We don't have to believe any of it.
We don't have to echo hate and fear. The government can do a lot of things, but they can't force our minds to conform to their agenda. The day before yesterday we heard about a plan to displace 2 million people from Gaza permanently, a place they have lived for centuries. Nobody has to agree that it's a good idea and if everybody disagrees, the conversation about the US taking over Gaza will stop. We don't have to agree to a government so small that it can't fit in your bedroom. A government so small that it can crawl inside personal and family decisions like when to have children. A government so small that it tells us when to have sex, when not to have sex, who to have sex with, who sex with, who to marry, and who not to marry. We don't have to allow the government to plan our families. We don't have to hate or fear immigrants. We don't have to persecute homosexuals or trans people. What did they ever do me? What did they ever do to anyone? We don't have to agree to any of this stuff. We can resist. Hatemongering is not who we are or at least it's not who I am. Every day we encounter a new line of reasoning for hatred, fearmongering, and division both on a national and global scale. Every day we face a new push to eliminate constitutional checks and balances. I don't have space in this post to list all the threats. It's a new threat every day and many of them are not idle threats.
Orchid. Cahuita National Park |
The dog’s courage was knowing what he wants and not letting some sweaty strange man in running shorts disturb his nap. Courage for humans relies less on arguing with those we disagree with and more on good people having the courage to feel compassion. Given that most people are good inside for the most part, I think it's possible. Every time somebody accuses me and others like me of being woke, I don't have to react. I can ignore it completely or make it clear that I don't agree with anybody that wants to even talk about invading Greenland. It's morally bankrupt. Don't agree with whatever the fearmongering de jour might be. We need to own our own minds and refuse to become part of the fear cycles. If the act of being woke were not a threat to their grip on power, Trump and Musk wouldn't be losing their shit about “wokeness.” Perhaps woke is what we need. We don't have to storm the capital to resist. There’s nothing patriotic about sedition. We can be the compassionate people that we really are in our hearts. We need to laugh and sing and dance and be free people despite the cages we are encouraged to live in.
I am not being Pollyanna here. People are going to get hurt and it might you or someone you love and that is why it takes courage to not back down. In the world of whitewater safety there’s a concept called “point positive.” It means that if you see a log or some other danger in the river and you want to warn the raft coming downriver to avoid the log, don’t point at the log. Point at the path the raft should take. Pointing positive doesn’t diminish that the log could kill somebody, but it provides a safe path for the boat captain. We face real threats. Don’t point at them. Yellow dog had real threats, but he didn't have to move, so he didn't move. He was Costa Rican so I think I will call him Bravo. I never heard the dog’s name. Bravo means brave.
Ice skating. South Twin Lake, Juneau. February 2025. |