Chomping At The Bit, Frothing At The Mouth & Priors

Blog post no.1 Maiden voyage

I recently enrolled in a running study where the criteria is 3+ runs weekly, data collected, post run questionnaire filled in and so forth, you know the spiel. I try my best to incorporate Missy (my rescue dog who rescued me- a two-way street). So off we go at a trot around my local. Familiar houses, familiar comparisons made between my standing in society and ‘theirs’. Us and them thoughts arise, as always as a feature of my internal dialogue, then squashed. Perhaps no where in the world of ‘us and them’ is it so prevalent than in an only child. Hence my most prominent internal mastery has been to lose the mechanism of ‘othering’. Nonetheless, like a writer, we sit behind our desks, from behind our skins and see the world out there and see what they have, what we have not- characteristics as well as stature and then proceed to reach the upper echelons in order to dine with kings and be spared from disappointing the world. It’s a silly spiral locked into the brain of natures apex predator- MAN. However, this is a story for another day so back to the run.

…I’ve got Missy on the leash- a gentle, yet anxiously exciteable dog. She runs well, pulls little.  Still the little that she pulls begins the physiological cascade that results in the frothing mouth. She wants to go ahead. She’s stimulated by what is ahead. We get to a small field and I let her off her leash free to wander without restraint. I walk casually across the field, careful to not include this part as my run as the criteria only allows for road running. I walk steadily forward as Missy darts left to right in zigzag fashion smelling and catching whiffs of excretions left behind by other four-legged primals. She smells the past, interprets it, moves on, smells the next, interprets, moves on, repeat. Every scent, every blade of grass distracting her from the last blade of grass like a cacophony of sounds or like my mind darting toward the next thought without finishing the last. Familiar scenes.  She manages to snake her way in my direction, my trajectory- a fairly straight and determined line of travel. We’ve crossed the field and I leash her once again.

Side note: just occurred to me that that the antonym of leash is to unleash-a fairly straightforward opposite until you define unleash as to “cause a strong or violent force to become unrestrained”. Side note checked.

We run on. The road rises and Missy does her best to sense my lil’ left pivot here, a lil’ right pivot there as she runs in front of the executive master-steerer behind her. She froths, her head darting at any bark from behind the gates of the houses we pass. With each passing bark Missy fights the urge to react to the snapping barks that come left and right of centre , determined to run forward and lead the charge to the frontiers, steered by ‘her master’. On we go we reach another little field to cross. Her leash off, she wanders freely once again with just peripheral-vision knowledge of where ‘the master’ is. Satisfied at the short-lived freedom she is leashed one last time, for the final stretch. We pass more houses, and the road ascends again as the four and two-legged mammals rise to meet it. We’re nearing home and we pass by a house where on the balcony stands two enormous german shepherds. They bark a terrible low, violent, snapping, frothing bark that seems to have more in it than mere “move on and don’t look back” vibes. A bit more guttural, a smidgeon of disgust at Missy who quite frankly is genetically linked to german shepherds but appears to be the unclean bastard version of the purebred. These german shepherds make no bones about the fact that Missy is a pariah amongst the pure.  Missy on the other hand keeps running forward but is more tempted than ever to retaliate against these huge nephilim versions of her. These versions who, at an earlier place and time in her life punctured holes in her puppy body to leave a ‘neurotag’ that registers intense danger signals. I run on but find it more difficult to steer her toward the horizon. The pull of the german shepherds is incredibly strong, and we get past the house but not without missy giving a shrieky bark like a banshee’s cry and a clear signal to me that these dogs have caused damage before. With all her might and my nudging, she ran on. Kinda the end…

But hang on, pause for a moment…because there’s a punchline. I tell this long story because it is allegorical to the human condition, to me.

Here’s the mirror:

I had a recent disagreement with a close friend and instead of heeding their distress signals- the SOS signs, I was determined to be right, and determined to get an understanding from them rather than to listen. I saw the world as I was, through my eyes and I couldn’t pause to listen over my own need to be understood. This is not new, I’ve got ‘priors’.

Prior Def. Noun. Informal. North American Plural noun: Priors : A previous criminal conviction eg. “He had no juvenile record, no priors”

It’s a story older than myself. One that was passed down from my father to me, who knows how far this goes back. The need to defend oneself. Self-defence in the absence of danger, self defence where no attack happens, self defence where danger is perceived but not real. Self defence where a past not just informs me but dictates what I should do next. But it is not real, and I have no reason to defend.

I’ve got priors.

I’ve also got lessons to learn. My poor dog Missy in this instance represents my ego and it chomps at the bit and froths at the mouth and while it doesn’t pull so wildly, my ego still pulls and will pull at its worst when old stories come up, even if those stories and monsters can’t harm me now. Me, the master in this story represents… I suppose the heart if we can call it that, or perhaps the bigger “I” that has no judgments, that is happy to be in the present moment, and not reacting to every wandering bark, just gently moving forward, rather happily. I’ve got priors and I’ve got lessons. I acknowledge the former, non-judgementally, but I choose the latter. 

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” - Rumi

JJ