Are You a Dog With a Stick or A Lazy Mutt with Lockjaw?

The world is such a crazy, horrible, wonderful, sad and hilarious place, right?

There is just so much happening all the time. And thanks to our phones, our media, our internet, we are updated on it all, instantly and then over and over and over again.

Me and mine have a morning ritual, I turn on the television to WKRN Nashville with Neal, Nikki, and whatever new kids to the neighborhood are doing weather and traffic. Then I serve coffee to my queen, two sweeteners, black.

We like Neal and Nikki. They are funny. Really they are. Otherwise there would be zero reason to watch. Nikki spills it over into Instagram and Facebook posts as well. And I suppose that’s what you’re supposed to do, but either she’s a master of making it feel organic, or it simply is. And since they have to do their own makeup, and the pay is not that great, I’m going for the latter.

I’m giving you all this shlock because immediately following this relatively humorous start to the morning we go straight into Strahan, Robyn, and Stephanopoulos and the litany of doom for the day.

Their initial lead in is a rapid-fire redundancy of ruthless reports.

I like Strahan, but I think I’d prefer Charles Barkley giving me the run down instead. I feel like Sir Charles, would have had enough of it by now.

“I’m not talking about mask mandates anymore, Robyn,” Charles would say, “Nobody cares about what a school board in Fish Creek, Wisconsin decided to do.”

The way they read it is so sensational, it makes my stomach turn. And so, if I’ve finished Wordle, I turn a deaf ear, head to the showers and that’s it for my traditional news media.

You know what’s more interesting than sensational news? I’ll tell you, a dog with a stick.

Yes, that’s more interesting. That’s it.

Have you ever seen a mutt or a $1000 lab, running across a field with some huge stick in their mouth?

It’s freaking hilarious. You can’t forget it.

A couple years back, Cheryl and I are driving down the Old Murray Paris Road. We turn a corner and spot this dog, with a limb from a tree, three times his body size, running across this empty pasture.

That was the happiest dog I have ever seen! He was like Rob Wells in the springtime, realizing he has time to play golf after work. Sheer joy.

And so was this canine! He’d found this tree limb of a stick and was bringing it back home, I suppose, to store with his other treasures. I mean seriously, I have no idea what this dog planned on doing with this piece of lumber, but he seemed to have purpose.

Dogs, unlike primates, aren’t known to use tools, so that’s out. And unlike birds, I don’t think he had a nest construction going on.

That pooch was the perfect example of living in the moment. It’s how dogs operate. They don’t have the news.

We all want to do that, don’t we? We all seek to be that in balance, absent of worry and anxiety.

However, it’s also a great example of ignorance is bliss.

Thinking about issues, about problems, about solutions take work. As a human, refusing to do this is not “living in the moment,” but instead it’s laziness.

And much like the simple sensational problems presented to us by the news media, the real answers require real work, not tacit or knee jerk responses.

So whether it’s Russian aggression in Ukraine, or Women’s Soccer being equally paid, or even Black History Month, remember there is always more to the story. The headline does not say it all. You must delve a bit deeper to find the closer truth.

Otherwise you’re just a mutt with too large of a stick and probably a horrible case of TMJ.