{"id":509,"date":"2022-08-21T17:17:56","date_gmt":"2022-08-21T17:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lettersforzerrius.com\/?p=391"},"modified":"2022-08-21T17:17:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T17:17:56","slug":"about-dogs-and-other-unknowns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/2022\/08\/21\/about-dogs-and-other-unknowns\/","title":{"rendered":"About Dogs and other Unknowns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As long as I can remember, I have been afraid of dogs. I always knew the events of my early childhood that set this in motion1<\/a><\/sup>It mostly involed our family dog recuing me from danger.<\/span>. Recently, in a discussion with BigOne, I had more insight into my fear both of dogs and other unknowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am convinced I have no ability to understand what action a dog might take. Barking might mean, \u201cHello!\u201d Barking might mean, \u201cStay away! I am going to attack you!\u201d Once I get to know a dog a little bit, I have become fond of many dogs2<\/a><\/sup>Especially our standard poodle, Andrew, who saved my life twice.<\/span>. However, there is always a voice in my head saying, \u201cDanger! You could be hurt!\u201d3<\/a><\/sup>There was another family dog and a different result, but that is another story.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose this relates to my fear of most mammals4<\/a><\/sup>The exception is cats. I admit that is a little strange.<\/span>. And geese5<\/a><\/sup>But not other kids of birds. Again strange.<\/span>. Reconciling these inconsistencies may be a different Letter in the future, but there is a small observation I made that I think has led to an important point I don\u2019t consider as often as I should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When faced with the unknown, humans often attribute characteristics to qualities that are not logical. I suppose this is a short cut that helped us survive as cultures change. I know, even if I don\u2019t like it, that some people will hurt you. How I know which people will hurt me? That is what the short cut is for. I got hurt by a person who had the quality Q(). Therefore, everyone with the quality Q() is a danger to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, maybe *I* didn\u2019t get hurt. Maybe I heard about it from you. People who have the quality Q() will hurt you. I see this every day in news stories that come across my not-so-smart phone, and I am sure everyone sees stories like this. Your quality is Q(D)6<\/a><\/sup>Liberal<\/span>, so you must be going to raise my taxes. Your quality is Q(R)7<\/a><\/sup>Conservative<\/span>, so you want to defund the police8<\/a><\/sup>Sorry for the current events reference. #sorrynotsorry.<\/span>. It doesn\u2019t have to be danger that relates the two qualities, but I think I react most strongly when one quality points to it being a dangerous situation for me \u2013 physical or emotional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem, as I see it, is that this kind of thinking is full of non-deterministic syllogisms. As we statics lovers like to say, correlation is not causation9<\/a><\/sup>More on that in another Letter too.<\/span>. The Q(D) is not always in union with Q(Taxes). The Q(R) is not always in union with Q(Defund).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I think making that mistakes leads us to surprises. Some good. Some bad. But what I see is when fear is involved, making this mistake leads to unfortunate consequences. Some small. Some large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2019, I spent a week in Hamburg, Germany in October and then a week in Brussels, Belgium in December. In both cases, I saw a lot of homeless people. I love to walk around cities, but I admit: I was afraid. Q(Sleeping on the Streets) equaled Q(Mental health issues) equaled Q(Danger to Me). I knew it was unfair to the individuals even as I flinched when the dusk fell and I was walking by people sleeping on mattresses under bridges. Even though I knew intellectually the causes of homelessness for a person are multifaceted and different from society to society, I couldn\u2019t get over my fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing about fear, the way I see it, is the consequence of me being wrong is worse for me, personally, than the consequence of changing my behavior by discounting a danger I know could exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose my fear of Q(Being a Dog) could have, and could still be, addressed in many different ways. However, the truth is, I just avoid dogs10<\/a><\/sup>For example, I could actually study animal psychology and get closer to understanding when I should be afraid of the behavior of an animal. But that would be a lot work.<\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it is enough that I am aware that these syllogisms should always be \u201cSome Q(a) are Q(b).\u201d If I can train myself not to automatically jump to fear and remain in observation, even when I know some Q(dogs) will Q(bite), I think I would experience less fear. Which would lead to less judgement. Which would lead to a bit more understanding in my world. Which might lead to more understanding of individuals and peoples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As long as I can remember, I have been afraid of dogs. I always knew the events of my early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dynamic.lettersforzerrius.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}