The Girl and The Dog

Today, I was driving to work listening to Thrice's Water Album. I'll admit, I was crusing along quite quickly until I spotted a school bus flash its restrictive lights - forcing all traffic to slow to a halt. I couldn't help but feel the rush of hate-filled thoughts as I contemplated the effect of it's stop on my already-late scheduled arrival to work.

Then, staring out of my annoyed-glazed eyes, I saw a girl bound off the bus towards her house. With great leaps, she threw herself forward, tossing her featherweight backpack on the grass beside the driveway. And then I saw what she was running toward. There, at the end of the driveway, a little black and white dog rose on its tiny hind legs. Its tongue was extended at maximum length, as if to take in as much as possible out of this moment. Its tail wagged wildly in the cold air.

With great speed, the two liberated beings met. The girl clutching the dog as best she could and the dog junping, trying, in vain, to lick her little face.

The image of this event has been sitting in my head all day. I am simply in awe of the absolute joy that occurred. So innocent and so genuine.

I sometimes wonder if we lose all our true feelings as we get older. Kind of like some sort of weird conspiracy, except it only occurs within our brain. Seriously though, the older you get the more we think, we process, we think some more, we calculate, we plan, we learn, and we thing some more. We attach so much weight to every situation and over think everything so much that we seem to miss the overarching feeling. Suddenly, our emotions have become manipulated by what we want ourselves to feel. We lose our actual genuine feeling or gut-instinct.

Everyday, people attempt to manipulate our emotions. They want us to feel a certain way. Commercials, news, billboards, text messages, music, etc. all bombard us with input. I'm not saying this is always bad, but it makes me wonder how often, or sub-consciously, I abandon my true feelings. I'm quickly reminded by the song I heard while I watched the girl and the dog;

I am drowning in a digital sea
I am slipping beneath the sound
Here my voice goes to ones and zeros
I'm slipping beneath the sound