Misbreading My Dog
How just about all truths are false
I met one of my dog friends in the park near me for a playdate, meaning he has a dog and not that I’m meeting random unsupervised dogs for a sniff and pee without a human present. My “Xochi” likes to run around with my friend’s “Gucci,” which is not the first time a woman in my life prefers Gucci over me.
There was another guy with a dog, Barney, there. He asked if my dog was a female. Being a progressive dog parent I said, “I’m waiting until she’s a little older so that she can decide for herself what gender she is.” He then said how his dog loves playing with female “pitties,” meaning pit bulls. This was the last straw. “Listen, you cretin, she is NOT a pit bull. She is a Xolotzcuintle, which I’m sure one of your breed wouldn’t know. In colloquial parlance, this is referred to as a Mexican hairless; she is also mixed with black mouth cur. I will be damned if I sit, stay and fetch here while you address my dog as a common pit bull!” At that point I threw a white glove I carry in my pocket for just such an occasion and challenged him to a duel.
Hopefully most of you cretins reading this realize I was taking poetic license with what occurred at the park. Barney’s human dad did say the female “pittie” line but I didn’t correct him. First of all, I don’t give a shit. Secondly, maybe she is part pit bull; I hear her mother was a bit of a whore.
The idea of proudly presenting the “truth” about my rare for this neighborhood dog breed did cross my mind. But immediately I thought, “What’s the point?” Was it to illuminate “truth” or because my ego thinks I’m somehow hot shit because, “I have a dog that you don’t have! Nanny, nanny poo-poo!”? and determined the latter reason was predominant. If there is one thing I dislike more than a falsehood, it’s an ego that thinks it is someone special based on trivial information.
Many of us do the same thing, only we don’t recognize it as equally foolish because in our minds it doesn’t present as cartoonish as my caricature. We share about our education degree not to offer useful information but for the bragging rights. We say what we do for work often not to help someone know us better but to rub it in their face. “One day working for the top surgeon on the East Coast, he said to me, ‘I’m about to retire and then you will become the #1 surgeon.’ Well, he retired last year and the rest is history.” We feel lifted when “our” sports team wins and defeated when they lose. “Our” team, as if the “truth” that they practice in the same state that we live in somehow reflects on us; if they win we literally say, “We won!” I don’t remember you stepping up to bat, champ.
.The deeper question is: What is truth? Most facts are not truth. “2 + 2 = 4” is a collection of representative symbols, in the same way as “apple” is an arrangement of letters that creates the idea of what an apple is but you certainly couldn’t eat it to satisfy your satiety or drop it off a bridge onto a passing car to feed your sociopathy.
Forgetting what’s outside of us—if it is even a “truth” that something is outside of us—the most important spiritual practice for discovering Truth with a capital “T” comes by focusing on our Selves. A pointed approach is by asking the question, “Who Am I?” Most will list their sex (“Four times a week, with Viagra six times a week”), religion, profession, whatever gender they feel like identifying as today, their practices (“I’m a yogi.” “I’m a chess player”)—a million things that most would not argue with as fact, unless it’s that silly gender thing. But are these facts “Truth”?
Who are you beyond how often you get laid per week? Beyond your chromosomes and sex organs? If you converted from being a Christian to being a Muslim because you decided you’re so ugly it’s better to cover up your head in a burka, did “truth” suddenly change? If you got fired from your job, with the termination papers did you suddenly go "<POOF> and cease to exist? If you give up yoga, what happened to the yogi? If you trade chess out for backgammon, did Who You Are fundamentally change? Is “Truth” based on characteristics, activities or affiliations?
Now you say, “I am a Republican,” and (less than) half the country hates you without even knowing you. You’re a black man and racists like Obama tell you that the only reason you’re not voting for Kamala is because she’s a woman, because according to him, he is the authority on black men and every black man is exactly the same. Does that define you?
“You're an orphan right? [Will nods] You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can't learn anything from you, I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in. But you don't want to do that do you sport? You're terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.”
-Sean (Robin Williams) in Good Will Hunting
I have a certain attachment to Truth. It is why two of my big buttons that get pressed are being misrepresented and being misunderstood. It is why if I write a text message that says, “I’m at 48th & Broadway,” I wait until I am at 48th Street before I hit SEND because close is only good in horseshoes and grenades and 47th-and-a-half is not 48th Street. It is why in my past life when I was George Washington and my father said, “Son, did you cut down that cherry tree?” I responded, “What the fuck is this, the Inquisition?”
Today’s dog misbreeding made clearer to me that it is not my mission to clarify every mistake but, more importantly, to see where my intention in such a partake may be a myriad of reasons other than to disseminate truth. This could include to show another how “smart” I am based on my insecurities and misidentification that my intelligence defines Who I Am; to put someone else down because I felt hurt by something they did or said; or to try and get laid. And since these are bullshit reasons for opening my mouth and will only result in attracting flies to the smell of my shit mouth, perhaps I can reflect more on why I say anything.
The Buddha offered three gatekeepers before speaking. They are: (1) Is it true? (2) Is it necessary? (3) Is it kind? I might add, (4) Is it spoken with awareness of Self? My own personal (5) is“Is it funny?” which tends to be the sledgehammer that breaks down all barriers to me holding my tongue.
Perhaps another gate could be (6) “Is it the right timing?” Perhaps your “truth” may actually be valuable but at this moment the other person won’t find it kind or useful. When a new female acquaintance you want to sleep with asks you, “Do I look fat in this dress?” telling her, “I would use a different word, maybe ‘corpulent’,” is not the best option to get laid, you fatty fucker. After dating for a year, responding to the same woman, “You look extremely portly in that dress!” and she’ll instantly know that you mean, “I find you sexy, you fat fuck!”
I’ve been in a virtual meditation group for about 2-years. At the end of the meditation, we usually have a chit-chat about a topic the organizer brings up. At times I am very erudite; at other times I keep my mouth shut, not because I have nothing to say or because there is a dick in it, but because I see that my offering of an aspect of “truth” may detract from another’s offering or ability to offer their own contribution of truth in that moment—and I find this a more important “truth” than whether what I have to say is like Steve Austin’s Bionic Man, “better, stronger and faster” than their offering. If it’s funny, I don’t think twice about stepping on the toes of their “truth,” but I’ve got issues.
They say that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason: so our glasses will stay on our heads…and so we’ll listen more than we talk. I think we would all benefit if we listened not just to words but to the subtle Truth behind the words. That Truth may be difficult to define but when we connect to it, even if we remain in silence we are speaking volumes.
