Generally, I don't care for insects nor reptiles, but I like mammals. Humans, however, are my least favourite mammals, arguably the most detrimental and destructive species on the planet. Horses are a distant second (and it's got nothing to do with their impact on the environment).

"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague ..."
 ― Agent Smith; The Matrix

Given that I am pantheistic and not religious, I spent Christmas and Boxing day working at the kennels. Ah, the joys of getting paid overtime for working on public holidays ... In truth, I've spent about six days a week working there, for the past two weeks (broken only by the day I went for my monthly psych checkup, which has now become once every two months, since I am apparently "doing very well").

That time spent at the kennels has given me the opportunity to gain the trust of/befriend a stupid little Pomeranian named Pumpkin. (Pumpkin by name and pumpkin for brains, IMO.) It snaps and snarls at everyone else, but I can pat it, pick it up and scratch it behind the ears and put it down again without issue. This is what the application of gentleness, kindness and patience gets me: Given enough time, I can probably befriend most dogs (even ones that initially seem to be foul-tempered little shit bags). Not for the first time, I'm thinking of changing the "about me" section of my LinkedIn profile to lead with "Dog Whisperer", seeing as other millennials (my contemporaries) are wont to give themselves ridiculous and no doubt exaggerated titles. (Granted, I don't find dogs to be particularly difficult to read/understand, but I'm no animal behaviour expert. I maintain that they are fairly simple and sweet creatures at heart and nothing much bothers them since they usually don't live long enough to loose that child-like enthusiasm and goodness. Only the good die young and only the young die good. By the time you get to my age, though, almost all of that goes, gets killed off and what's left is the darker aspects of one's nature.)

As far as I'm concerned, all dogs are lovable. Of the hundreds (maybe a thousand or more) dogs I've encountered and exercised, I'm hard-pressed to think of any that I actually dislike (other than the one that bit my arm hard enough to leave scars), even the difficult/problem ones that are disobedient, ill-disciplined, nervous, timid or otherwise make my job difficult for the duration of their stay. It's very hard to form a grudge against a dog, let alone be angry with one for more than a few minutes.

Oddly enough, it's the dogs of which people tend to be wary (Alsatians, Boerboels, Bull Terriers, Rottweilers, Pitts, Staffordshire Terriers, et cetera)  — usually because of their size or stereotypes  — that I find to be the sweetest and most straight-forward. It's usually the Dachshunds, Jack Russels, Min Pins, Yorkies and other little ankle-biters for which I watch out. They tend to have odd temperaments, meaning they are likely to go from chilled and friendly to snappy and snarling within seconds. (At least with Daxies, though, their behaviour's often a case of fear motivating aggression. Gain one's trust and you've got an enthusiastic, silly little friend for life!) With big(ger) dogs, it's fairly easy to see in their body language and facial expressions (yes, dogs do use their facial muscles to form them) whether they are happy with my presence, merely tolerating me, afraid or aggressive and unwilling to cooperate.

What's Wrong with People?

Can I make the same claim regarding my attitude towards humans, though? LoL. Hell no! As far as people are concerned, we're generally horribly irredeemable aresholes (myself included) not worthy of my time, kindness nor patience. I realised a while ago that I am a bad person and I (mostly) embraced that. (I actually like and enjoy messing with people's heads.) I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but I think it started when I agreed to work for an MNC that deliberately lied to its customers and cherry-picked/fudged their data in instances where the technology failed to accurately record/process it, when I said nothing about it despite knowing it happened and that I felt such practice was wrong (as much from a data integrity standpoint as an ethical one).

"Every day, all day, my job ... my whole job is to ... understand people well enough so that I know how to lie to them, so I can sell them things they don't really want. And when you study people like that, when you really see the way they treat each other, well ... You're no dummy. You see what they do, and they do it without even thinking about it. Fuck. [...] We fuck each other over all the time, without even realizing it. We fuck every living thing on this planet over and think it'll be fine because we use paper straws and order the free-range chicken. And the sick thing is, I think deep down we know we're not fooling anyone. I think we know we're living a lie. An agreed-upon mass delusion to help us ignore and keep ignoring how awful we really are."
 ― Amanda Sandford; Leave the World Behind (2023)

As far as I see it, I'm on psychiatric drugs so that I can deal with my own issues and problems. Barring my many inadequacies, incompetencies and inefficiencies, I am doing reasonably well with managing that, by my own estimation (although the doc agrees with me). However, I am seriously considering asking my shrink exactly when I will get the drugs I need in order to deal with other people and theirs. I am not doing at all well on that front. (So far, I haven't worked up the nerve to unleash my snark on someone sweet and undeserving of it.) I suspect the answer will be along the lines of "when you can afford to pay for them" (or acquire them by other means, if need be).

It's as if I fell into a Monty Python or Two Ronnies series of skits at some point in the last four to ten years. (Life went from making little sense to making practically none.) When Rene Magritte's surrealist art makes more sense to me than other people's arbitrary bullshit, I'm pretty sure I've got a problem with relating to other humans (even though we supposedly speak the same language).

"What you tried to say
Is [that] you don't want to play.
What you want
And what you need
Dont mean fuck to me!"
 ― Keenan James Maynard/Tool; Crawl Away

Thumbnail image: Poster's Own Artwork (Surrealist Painting of Lady Godiva in leather galloping through a field of stampeding bulls)