I recently realized I had become a cynical, angry and negative person.
Okay, I didn’t just realize that, what I realized was that being a cyncial, angry, negative person wasn’t working for me anymore. Whether it ever really did is a matter that could be up for debate, but is ultimately irrelevant.
These things do not happen overnight. They take practice. Practice enough and you become an expert.
It is really easy to come to believe that however you are is just the way you are because we tend to think of our minds as separate entities, the software of our brains, so to speak.
That’s not true, though. Our minds are hardware. Neurons and synapses that become wired to think, react, and emote in particular ways. Fortunately, our brains are plastic; they can be rewired. The older we get, or the longer we have been working on the old wiring, the more difficult it becomes, but it can be done.
That is what I am trying to do. This new version of my column is intended to reinforce my rewiring project.
In fact, I thought about calling it Rewiring Thom, but settled on The Bug and Me. That is, by the way, grammarically correct.
And is pretty much a direct ripoff from Marley and Me. Marley and Me is a movie about a Miami newspaper columnist, based on Philadelphia Inquirer columnist John Grogan’s memoir of the same name.
In the movie version—I haven’t read the book—John aspires to journalistic greatness, but gets stuck writing a column about his dog. Through that relationship, and writing about it, he comes to learn about unconditional love, honesty, responsibility and acceptance.
The Bug is my dog. Her actual name is Lady MacBeth. She answers to Lady, but I call her Bug. That just came out one day. Lady MacBeth, Ladybug, Bug. I like it because it is ironic. She is a Newfoundland dog, so she’s big, like, 150 pounds big.
She is not really like Marley, however. Marley was an untrainable, incorrigible disaster on legs. The Bug is a bit of a brat, but relatively well-behaved for a young, giant dog.
The reason the column became The Bug and Me is because I aspire to be the person she thinks I am. That is not entirely an original thought. I am not at liberty to say from whom I got it, but feel obligated to own up to the fact I didn’t think it up all by myself.
In any event, she looks at me like I am the most amazing being that ever lived. It makes me feel guilty that I am, in fact, not perfect.
What most gets in my way of not being a cynical, angry, negative person is an inability to accept the world as I find it. That’s where the Bug comes in. She is the perfect role model for accepting the world as it is and not as I want it to be.
A lot of the time we can’t choose what happens to us. And we certainly can’t control what other people do or the nonsense they believe in. We can control how we react to those things, however, and, with the Bug’s help I intend to retrain myself.
Don’t worry, though, I do not intend to become entirely dog-like. While there is a lot to be said for the wisdom of dogs, they are still dumb beasts (sorry, Bug). For example, instinct governs a lot of canine behaviour. For example, fear generally elicits a fight or flight response. The Bug tends toward the former, as do I. Appropriate human behaviour, however—except in the most extreme cases where actual physical danger is imminent—is to observe the fear and work toward a non-emotional solution.
And don’t worry, I am not about to start advocating for nonsense such as homeopathy or other forms of pseudoscience. I am still rational being.
I do intend, however, to stop railing against things I cannot change and be more understanding of my fellow credulous humans.
My only fear with this new endeavour is that I won’t be able to sustain a column about the Bug and me. Fortunately, though, this is my space, so I’m not really obliged to be a slave to the format.
