Blind Dogs

So often we see someone walk by a fenced yard containing a dog. The dog usually watches the approach, and at some point begins to bark. The passerby goes on as he/she would have done anyway, but the dog keeps barking as long as his interest is occupied by the retreating figure. Thus, his territorial instincts are satisfied, and he is proud to have once again protected his master’s property by his ferocious barking. The poor dog will do this all day, day in, day out, year in, year out, and for all of his natural life he will never stop to consider that all that barking was all for nothing. In fact, the poor doggie is probably unable to ever think of such a thing. You might simply say, “What of it – it’s just a dog.”

However, have you ever considered that we humans might have just such a blind spot in our existence – an aspect of our lives in which we respond to a stimulus or situation without ever realizing that our efforts do no good whatsoever? What could it be?? We don’t know! We have no way of knowing – if I knew, I could tell you, but I can’t tell you because neither you nor I could ever be aware of such a thing. There is no way to know, but I look at the dog, and I worry. I look at pedestrian and dog, and I know the dog is irrelevant, at most, an annoyance. I look at situations moving through my life and my response to them, and wonder if all my efforts had any real effect, and if I too, am irrelevant. Are we, for all our self-deceptions, putting out efforts which amount to little more than useless yapping at things which move on their own on the other side of barriers which we can see, but not move through? We can suspect, dimly, but there is no way to be sure, and maybe that is why the dog barks so long…

reply to post by Lazarus Short


Guy sits down to watch TV, he will do this everyday, day in day out, every week, every year for the rest of his natural life he will never stop to consider that all that TV was all for nothing.

reply to post by roughycannon


Exactly! Jim Morrison, in his book The Lords and the New Creatures, mentioned Caligula's famous wish for all his subjects to have a single neck, so that he could sever them all with a single stroke. Morrison added that television is this transforming agent.