On the way home I saw a mid-sized dog approaching from a dirt field just off the road. It wasn't running or growling at all. But it wasn't smiling or wagging its tail either. It was stalking like a bobcat in the mountains or a cheetah on the plains. It wasn't yet what I would call emaciated but the shoulder bones bulged behind its face with each step.
You and I know that good guys always prosper, a gentle answer turneth away wrath, you attract more flies with honey than vinegar and so on and so forth. We've been trained to be nice. But I don't think this heathen dog ever read the book of Proverbs or watched a Disney movie. This Asian dog probably hadn't even benefitted from the Confucian ideal of recompensing kindness with kindness or been edified by the Dalai Lama's message that if you want to be happy, practice compassion and if you want others to be happy, practice compassion. I don't think personal enlightenment was high up on this dog's list of things to attain that day. At least it was way below other things such as survival, reproduction, gastric satiety. But why would that deter me? Good triumphs over evil doesn't it? I was going to be so nice to this dog that he'd absolutely love me!
I whistled for the dog and began talking to it in soothing tones. The dog instantly understood that I wasn't the threat it had feared. It understood that unlike the average Thai passerby, I would not treat it as a dog. I was ABOVE that! However, its reaction wasn't quite what I'd hoped for. The change in the dog's demeanor and actual expression was one I will not soon forget. Like the blood curdling, white-eyed, toothy countenance of a person who realizes his foe is defeated and open for the coup de grace, and chooses to deliver that death blow.
The dog, emboldened, came toward me menacingly. I immediately realized that a change of strategy was in order. I think I might have said something silly like, "Bad dog!" The new tone of my voice only caused the dog to pause slightly. Or maybe it was just waiting for the dozen OTHER dogs that seemed to rise from the earth like Aphrodite from the foam of the sea. I was fresh meat. And given the average size of a Thai person, I must have looked like a Thanksgiving turkey to this pack of now charging dogs. I was plumb out of compassion for the dog or any of its cohorts. I turned tail and ran like a cat. Or more accurately like Garfield the cat. But this dog nipping at my heels was odiOUS, but not Odie.
I ran for what seemed a long enough time for the dogs to catch up to me. I ran TOWARDS the busy street, not away from it, (as I had learned the hard way from a similar incident with 15 stick toting teens who attacked me in Vancouver). I feared that I wouldn't reach the highway and could almost feel the first fangs sinking into my ample buttocks. Would this be how I met with my demise? In a dirt field in Thailand? Eaten by stray dogs? Would I be forced to turn and fight for my life? I believe I was one bite away from reverting to the feral state of my adversaries. And in that savage state, could I possibly defeat the dogs or fend them off? These dogs had underestimated me. I was ready to at least take a few of them with me if I was to die in that field. While running at full speed I was desperately searching the field for a stick, a pipe, or a discarded jawbone of an ass when two ladies on a moped swerved off the highway, rode between the dogs and me and gunned the moped motor. This effectively ended the dramatics. The dogs retreated to their VERY effective hiding spots in the field. I mean as mysteriously as they had emerged from the field they melted back into it like Honus Wagoner into the shrubbery of the Field of Dreams.
Winded and still hastily making my way toward the road I waved to the ladies and said, "Khorb koon. Sawhat dee kap." That's thank you and good bye. They waved at me and giggled.
I could launch into a lecture on Maslow's hierarchy of needs here. But the point I want to make is that Maslow, (one of many people who became famous for writing down on paper what I thought was obvious to everyone, (but I think I was wrong)), is only relevant from a position of privilege. Lifelong privilege. It would be as tedious as the gatherings Lord Henry Wotton in "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" despises where the rich debate the virtues of thrift and the idle talk about the benefit of a hard day's work. But, screw it, I'll do it anyways!
While the tiny portion of the world who I would consider to be privileged is striving for things like self-esteem, fame, love, confidence, recognition and FREEDOM, the majority of the world is just trying to stay alive. Things are viewed differently in relation to how far up Maslow's pyramid you find yourself. To me, and I count myself among the privileged, compassion is beautiful. I love campassionate people and I am trying to be a kind person. I have that luxury because I am not worried about food or shelter. But to someone or something living every day on what they can get that day, virtues like compassion, kindness, charity, even love are in other people weaknesses to exploit for personal gain and in themselves stupidity for not exploiting that weakness. If that dog in Thailand was, as I suspect, starving it would have been a supreme act of canine compassion for it to supress the survival instinct of attack. He was not stupid enough to let me pet him and I was stupid for trying, thus giving it the opening it needed to attack.
I don't blame the dogs at all for chasing me. In fact I will be back in Pattaya some day soon. The field of dogs is on the way to a golf driving range I use while I'm there. What a perfect illustration! Next time I'm on my way lugging my thousand dollar golf clubs to the range to drive golf balls in hopes of lowering my handicap and I pass by the starving dogs I think I just might toss a handfull of doggie treats in that field, then run like a bat out of hell. And I probably won't stop being nice to stray dogs no matter what country I'm in.
I don't blame poor people for trying to cheat privileged folks like me either. In fact I sometimes, whether consciously or unconsciously, put myself in positions that allow them to do so. I'm just that nice! Or stupid.
But I'll tell you what real evil is. Evil exists here on earth despite what some believe. In fact it is widespread. You can find it in any country of the world poor or rich. Evil is when people find themselves beyond survival mode, even in positions of privilege and/or luxury at the top of Maslow's pyramid and they continue to employ techniques used in survival mode. If I find out that those dogs are well cared for and fed, I just might feel a desire to go back to Thailand and throw a handful of POISONED doggie treats in that field. They are just bad dogs and it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. When a dog lives in survival mode long enough it's impossible to lose those instincts. They don't feel right about taking free food because they've fought for every meal their whole lives so they will bite a person who gives them a big juicy steak. These are considered crazy dogs. Not right in the head. Dangerous to humans. Impossible to reform. In a proper society they would be "put down." I saw them attack another guy who got too close too. He fought them off with a golf club for a while and I waved to him and shouted for him to cross the street.
This all happened almost two years ago. I don't doubt that enough people have complained to the authorities by now that the whole pack has been "humanely destroyed." I mean what if a kid were to walk by the field? Or even worse, a TOURIST kid! I hope neither has happened. On the other hand, I hold no ill will toward the dogs.
As for people, they are worse than animals. People have brains, not just instincts. Every day here in Asia I see people lying, cheating, stealing, using violence against each other, NOT for survival but out of pure selfishness. I see that feral, wide-eyed, toothy countenance on people who are signing crooked contracts or forclosing on mortgages or taking over businesses. They might tell you it's in their culture but I'm here to tell you that's a crock! Anyone who uses Sun Tzu's "Art of War" or the writings of Confucious to justify their greed is either selectively reading those writers or hasn't read them at all. It happens with the Bible too and any other source of moral values you can find. There's a difference between stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family and stealing a loaf of bread to use as a condiment for your yacht launching party. That difference has been lost in societies all over the world where we willingly suppress what is right in the pursuit of riches. Since it is awfully hard to teach old captains of industry and crooked businessmen new tricks, a proper society would have these mentally diseased individuals "put down." Instead they are given accolades and respect. Even though the top one percent of Maslow's pyramid could easily elevate everyone in the world above the bottom two sections and still remain the top dogs, they not only will not do that but continue to fight for every bit of riches they can get as if it were a matter of survival. Like dogs biting the hand that gives them steak. These are bad people. Impossible to reform. Not right in the head. Dangerous to humans.
But I will go on being nice/weak to people and animals all over the world and I will continue to be taken advantage of. I'm sure it'll be my undoing. But it will be a good death. Or maybe, just maybe, some day the whole world will make it past the bottom portions of Maslow's pyramid and then we will ALL have the luxury of being able to be nice to each other.
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