Anger Issues

Jack and Sherry are overwhelmed with anger. They rage at each other, everyone else, themselves, all the time. I can always feel it coming, smell and sense when their pulse starts to shoot up, their arteries begin to constrict, get as tight as guitar strings, testosterone begin to surge, cortisol receding.

Financial pressures and job woes and plunging markets and economies and worries about the EU and the war and impending terror attacks and lack of health insurance and depleted retirement accounts and kids that use "fuck" in every sentence and people and dogs who never shut up. It all adds up to pressure. And anger.

Anger is a survival emotion. Many thousands of years ago it motivated people to prevail against odds, rise up and do what had to be done to survive, instead of cowering in the cave and awaiting eventual doom. Back then you got pissed, grabbed your spear, and went out and got you a mastodon, and then ate well for a month.

But how that plays out today is the same story of how other emotions has adapted to the modern world, become problematic. Greed is another example. 30,000 years ago greed was not a problem. It kept you alive. But now, in this modern world of over-abundance, is is somewhat of a problem. Greed is at the heart of most of the corporate and governmental corruption in the world today. And yesterday, for that matter. And anger and greed are drinking buddies. They stoke each others fire.

One thing all this anger is not good for is the family. Rick and Sven pay the price for the angst-infested household. They are being taught anger. Not good. A person needs to be able to get hot, but then to cool down. Dogs are good at this. Even we weredogs are much better at it than humans. Cats are terrible at it. They carry grudges forever.

I worry about Sven and Rick. Adolescence is hard enough without all this angst and anger. But I don't know what to do for them. I am just the dog.

If not for our alternating phases, of human then dog, we weredogs would probably burn out much sooner, much like humans. There is a regenerative facet to our shifting. Part of that regeneration is forgetting. Or maybe losing is a better word. Dog memory is different from human memory, just as dog psychology is a different maze
altogether.

The anger is this house is beginning to affect me. I may have to switch over to dog phase sooner than planned. And it is not just this house. I smell it in most of the the houses around here. Most dogs tell me the same stories in their homes, with their humans.

I miss snappy, hoppin music. It used to play all the time in this house. Not any more. I wonder if it is the same in other houses. I need to ask around.