Dog, that’s absurd!

Chuck keeps looking outside and seems to be wondering why the world moves through his eyes. He tilts his head in an upward position to scent the surroundings, and maybe he’s trying figure out where the fresh salty wind is coming from. My dog and I are on the front seat of a jeepney, the whole family behind us, everyone still damp from swimming in the calm waters of Paguriran Beach in Sorsogon.

Golden Retrievers are excellent swimmers, and Chuck proves that his webbed paws work like flippers. It was his first time to be in deep water, yet he swam with relative ease. Learning to swim is a frustration for me, and I hope my dog can teach me how to swim, the way he teaches me to view the world through a different set of eyes.

When Chuck sees a family member or a perennial visitor, he wags his tail like he hasn’t seen them in a long time. Even when I’m gone for only half a day, when I return he jumps at me like I abandoned him for years. He sees people in a new way every time, and he welcomes them without regard for the past or the future.

When Chuck eats his 6 p.m. meal, he cleans his bowl and doesn’t ask for seconds or dessert. After eating, he drinks his water and then goes back to his post to guard the house. He is content with what is given him, and he doesn’t complain if his bowl is not filled to the brim.

When I’m preparing to take him for a walk, he sits still on command so I can put his collar and leash on him. But once back inside the house, he chews on the strap of his collar harness and expects it to be taken off. I know that Golden Retrievers are one of the smartest dog breeds, but I don’t know if he’s smart enough to know that we are free inside our home, that we can roam around and be ourselves.

Dogs have the intelligence of a three-year-old toddler, but it’s not enough to be aware of their existence. Does it mean that humans are more alive because we know what “alive” means, or dogs are more alive because they don’t know the complexities and problems of being “alive”? Are humans really smarter than other animals, because we have the capacity to philosophize over our own life, or is the intelligence of bipedal mammals too overrated and self-serving?

Wolves prefer the company of other wolves over humans, while dogs prefer the company of humans over other dogs. I, on the other hand, prefer dogs over most other humans. Humans are terrible animals, with a rude temperament, irrationally hostile behavior and disgusting attitude.

Animals in the wild are built to be killers in order to survive. Even elephants and wildebeests, which are herbivores, kill big cats from time to time when their herds are threatened. But I don’t understand how civilized humans can kill another human being just to keep surviving. Death can be delivered in so many ways and so many levels that killing isn’t confined to shooting and stabbing.

Murderers are killers; that’s a takeaway. There are murderers who kill after robbing a man on his way home from work, murderers who kill after raping a virgin college girl, and murderers who kill for fun after smoking a stone from Heisenberg. But cutthroat businessmen are killers, too. They kill fertile soil to extract precious gold, they kill pristine rivers to build malls and condominium units, and sometimes they kill indigenous people, which makes them legitimate killers.

Television networks kill the ability of audiences to think by showcasing celebrities who look unbelievably good but can’t sing, dance, or act. Foreign films translated and dubbed into the local language show how these networks think Filipinos are stupid. I saw Brad Pitt speaking Filipino in “Inglourious Basterds” and I was furious about how Quentin Tarantino’s ingenious writing was bastardized.

Politicians who make a living out of professional lying are killers as well. They kill the hope of the voting population, of people affected by calamities, and of ordinary citizens trying to keep a decent living in shameful conditions.

Sometimes I wonder if humans are savages camouflaged in fashionable furs.

I remember the stories we read in grade school where there is always a moral lesson in the end. A mistake is committed and a lesson is learned to not repeat that mistake. I wonder: Where are those moral lessons now? The stories that I read in the past years don’t have moral lessons anymore. I wonder if stories for adults don’t have moral lessons because there are no more lessons to learn, or because people naturally lose their morals as they grow old. If that’s the case, I wish I stayed as a young boy because I like holding on to my few but genuine morals.

Maybe this is what growing old does to people: Eat away the edges of your ideals and resolve until there is nothing left but a frayed, jaded soul. Before I entered college, my friends and I were making fun of dead-end jobs that we said we would only take after we’re dead. But in the digital age where the fad is to get pregnant and then get married at 20, being socially aware and politically active is as useless as being a clown at a funeral. A few years ago, it made our stomach turn upside down to sell things we don’t believe in, but not anymore, not when we have reached the age when how much someone is worth is all that matters.

I once tried this dating app just for kicks. I just want to see beautiful filtered photos of women, nothing more. There was this girl who posted: “Treat me like a princes” (sic). Princes, man.

It’s really hard to find someone who makes sense in this meaningless world. You know what, I’ll just engage my dog in a deep conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of having a tail.

Jani Miranda, 24, works in a small organic farm.