I want to be a dog!

Chuck finishes off his food with a big lick on the side of his bowl. A mixture of rice, fried fish, string beans and mangoes seems to be a gross combination of dinner and dessert all in one for a human, but not for a health-conscious dog who wants a complete meal.

Chuck is a Golden Retriever named after the protagonist in the geek spy television series that subsequently deteriorated into a terrible show. He just turned four, but no, he is not 28 in dog years. Contrary to popular belief, the age of a dog varies according to size and breed. Large dogs can live up to 12 human years and small breeds can live longer. If you want to argue with that, go to the Internet and complain.

During late afternoons when the children of the neighborhood are back from school and playing near the front of our house, Chuck always watches them through the spaces in our barred gate. I don’t know what he thinks about every time he observes them—whether he’s annoyed by their noise or he wants to go out and play with them. Or maybe he wants to be like them, a real kid.

Like Pinocchio who wants to be a real boy, I always have that feeling of wanting to be something else—say, a dog. If I could be a dog even for just a day, I wonder if I could do more things than being a thinking bipedal.

If I become a dog, I wouldn’t have to go through the complicated rules of attraction just to find someone to be with. Dating is a brutal game; you need a strong stomach to live with rejections. Social background, financial capability, physical appearance—they’re all weighed to determine if you can meet the parents and probably hit the
altar. Unlike in humans, the mating of dogs is very instinctual, and they don’t discriminate whether their partner is black or white, or the result of high-class breeding. What they know is that if they like each other, they’ll be together.

If I become a dog, I can raise one leg and relieve myself against any tree with a smug look on my face that says, “Waddya lookin’ at?” Hey, I can even scratch my balls in public without being called a pervert.

Every time I take a bus, I never fail to see someone peeing by the side of traffic-stricken Edsa, or beside a bus tire. I’m certain that they’re not dogs because they’re wearing clothes. What I’m not sure of is if these human animals are also marking their territory.

If I become a dog, I wouldn’t have to worry about how I look. I haven’t found a decent barber in years, and one can just imagine how fantastic I must look after a haircut. If I’m a dog, I wouldn’t have to live in a world where how you look is more important than what you know or what you can do. I turn on the television set and all I see are real fakes pretending to be actors and singers and writers and painters. This digital era has become the age of vanity and madness, where everyone wants to be a reality TV star. And everyone wants to be liked by other people, even if they don’t really care about those people at all.

If I become a dog, I wouldn’t have to worry about achievements or promotions or awards, or any other measurement for arbitrary success. I wouldn’t have to ponder over my life and lament that nothing seems to be happening with it.

My life has been in limbo for, like—what, four years now? Sometimes I feel like I’m Holden Caulfield who doesn’t know what he wants and is unable to adjust to the world of adulthood. Except that Holden is a kid and has a right to be confused, whereas I’m already 23 and that takes away the benefit of the doubt of becoming a qualified failure.

Life is confusing when you are growing up, isn’t it? You have to deal with life-altering decisions, and you have to consider how these will affect your future. It has become always about “the future,” about what will happen next. Even in job interviews, one of the template questions is: “How do you see yourself in five years?”

Dogs don’t live like that. Dogs have no concept of time; they don’t dwell on the past or plan for the future. What they perceive is only the present. They are not worried as to whether they will have something to eat tomorrow; they just chew on what’s in their bowl right now. I wish I could be like that: someone who lives in the moment and just thankful that he’s alive.

When I was younger I swore I’d make a difference, I’d fight for social awareness. I chose to write because I like stories that eat up your insides and haunt your consciousness, and I thought I could be someone who would tell those kinds of stories. That was also the time when things weren’t so complicated and it was easy to know the difference between right and wrong. Things were just black and white, either good or bad.

But when I got a little older, things seemed to become more complex. Good and bad became subjective concepts and everything seemed to be in the gray area. Later I learned that you can’t change a world that doesn’t want changing, and you can’t fight for a cause when you’re also fighting yourself.

A friend who is working half a world away asked me through e-mail if I’m still writing short stories and poems—because maybe I’d be interested in posting them on Wattpad. I don’t know what that is, but I looked at all my writings and I realized I hadn’t finished anything in months. I had many ideas but none of them saw their own endings.

Maybe I don’t want to be a dog anymore. Maybe I can continue being myself so I can finish what I have started. I’m not certain if I can finish all those stories, but there’s one thing I’m sure of: I’m back from my coma.

Jani Miranda, 23, is working in a small organic farm and planning to volunteer for Cara (Compassion and Responsibility for Animals) in the near future.