Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass............ My wife and I have a love affair with Yorkshire terriers and small dogs that has produced a household with 7 of the little creatures, total weight under 50 pounds. They all came to us distressed and in need of a home and have given much more than they've taken. Today I was watching one in particular that came from a breeder and on her arrival at my abode had spent all of her 8 years in a cage breeding, giving birth, suckling puppies, and as soon as nature would permit, starting the cycle again. When we got Lilly Pod she couldn't navigate the stairs up or down off the back porch simply because her life hadn't included exposure to such modern methods of going to and from the fenced in yard that would be her domain. To jump on the couch, which she was welcome to do, was a leap much bigger than she could process, so Lilly Pod spent the first several months with us being carried up and down the stairs and lifted on and off the couch. After months of encouragement from us, and her watching her other doggie brothers and sisters, finally one day Lilly Pod clumsily hobbled down the stairs. We had a celebration and waited for her next major achievement. A couple of weeks later She triumphed over the stairs. The couch was a much larger hurdle, but she intently watched all her canine family hopping on and off the couch and finally one day the way to overcome it dawned on her and a couple of trys later she was everybody's equal. After some thought it occurred to me Lilly Pod and her trials and tribulations were much like people all across the world. Lilly Pod's counterparts in the house never understood what her fears were nor what she did or didn't understand, and why she couldn't do what they done so easily, nor did they care. It was evident Lilly Pod was genetically like the rest and her bloodline was of the highest order, but she didn't recognise the simplest behaviour, was afraid of everything that moved, and could not participate in the fun everybody else was having. She was suspicious of everything and trusted no one. How could this be? It became clear to me after Lilly Pod conquered the stairs and couch, she started a slow turn around socially also. Why? Obviously the environment she came to was completely different than the one she spent her life in and she understood nothing about the new one, and the ones in residence knew nothing of her life and how she lived before they came together, and didn't care. Lilly Pod was capable of everything her brothers and sisters were, and possibly more, but her environment would not allow her to grow in ability so she seeked out her level of achievement commensurate to her environment. That is also how our world is. What is so plain and sensible to us, is steeped in our own ignorance toward those we disagree with and cannot understand. We need only to look at the environment of those who are militant against us, financially, socially, religiously, and compare their standard of living against ours, and soon the real problems between us come forward. We've lost the ability to communicate with the rest of the world on anyone's level except our own, and unless we can figure out a way to have a true two way dialog we are bound to sink further into the quagmire we are presently stuck in. Lilly Pod could show Washington a thing or two about basics and how you make it work..............