Tuesday, March 24, 2009

from my fireyfox history

Snippets from my Firefox history:
Check out that horrible dog experiment in the last one. It's not gruesome, just sad. Hits near home for me cos it was just a few years ago that I'd quite happily yoke myself to other people's jaunty lives.

No, that sounds strange - let me try again...

I think when you depend too much on other people - for approval, for timing, for good favour, for money, for whatever - you become like a Group 3 dog (from the first experiment). Things happen, stop happening, happen at seemingly random intensities - all under someone else's control. Then you "simply lay down passively and whine."

I was like a Group 3 dog once. I'd have a good time with a close friend, or date someone I really got along with, and over time seek more and more to preserve that "good time" and "getting along" by letting my "happenings" depend upon what they wanted to do and when they wanted to do it.

This also gave me a lovely way out of taking responsibility for decisions and my own "happenings" - if there was a bad happening, I had someone to blame; if a good happening, well, I was there and I stood behind that great idea from the start - ra ra ra.

This isn't a sad story. After awhile I realised what a waste of my time it was and came unstrapped, grew some balls, took some ownership. According to that study, this makes me an optimist. But I like to think of it as simply "growing up".

So - woo - happy ending. But I do feel sorry for the Group 3 dogs in that Wiki article, and other Group 3 dogs in my neighbourhood.

Here is a picture of a cat.

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