Pet Peeve

i picked up author dennis prager’s national bestseller happiness is a serious problem with intent on writing a specific post.

as a recent habit, i dive into books from the very beginning. i read dedications and forwards. mr. prager’s book was no exception. i took a plunge into his introduction. the intro hit me like jumping into ice cold water. his passage: “human beings want to be happy, and they have a right to want to be. far from being a selfish or ignoble goal, this is one of the distinguishing features of human beings. to the extent that animals can be said to want anything, what they want is to avoid pain and to be sated, but not to be happy. for better and for worse, this is a uniquely human aim.”

wrong! wrong! wrong?

much has changed since mr. prager and myself grew up. during my education, somehow i absorbed the similar notion that human beings are far different from other animals. this was a mindset from the past, however. science has proven that many animals have impressive brains. for instance, corvids have been discovered to have intellect on the leel of some primates.

in college, my field was cognitive science. this is the study of the human brain as an information processing unit. emotions are part of brain functioning. i liken them to applications or programs. for example, fear is a program that can stimulate the body and ready it to react, i.e. get the heart beat racing so it can start running. emotions are powerful programs intended to serve various purposes.

animals likewise possess brains. they too, have many of the same applications and programs that we have. they sense fear. and pertinent to this post, they experience “happiness”.

mr. prager, regardless of his comment, subconsciously appreciates that animals experience happiness. he is a devoted pet lover who made his bulldog otto into a social media sensation. he understands that his animals want to be petted and he is more obliged to do so. do his dogs wished to get petted because they have an itch? is it because it makes them feel good and makes them happy? or, most likely, is it both?

my observations of my dog is that the some pets are forever seeking happiness. absent the quest to satiate to quell its hunger, our particular dog is on a quest to pursue happiness. when on walks, it bursts into excitement when its runs into her dog friends. likewise, she is frequently turning moments into games. we often are forced to chase her around the house to get her when we want to leave. she is doing it for fun; to experience happiness.

the dog’s quest for happiness has its downside. we feel compelled to make sure that the dog receives enough stimulation. stimulation, with the opportunity to experience happiness prevents the dog from getting irritable and emotional. sometimes, the dog, when deprived of stimulation, will not eat.

thus, my pet peeve is that authors sometimes step out of the realm of opinion and matters come across as factual. this is often a problem with respect to writing in general. there are many words or phrases that allow individuals to say things without making them a factual assertion. factual assertions, however, are subject to scrutiny. in this matter, i can comfortably say that mr. prager’s assertion is worthy of being tested. i would contend that there are animals that, just like humans, want to be happy.

in fact, mr. prager, in his quest to address the matters of “happiness” may benefit from taking time to observe his pets and see how they both seek and experience happiness. dogs, especially, as masters of emotions. they know how cheer people up and make people “happy”. in the end, he may unlock even more secrets to human happiness from his dogs. canines are certainly masters with respect to observing human emotions. there is o other animal that spends their time observing humans.

be well!!

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