I Can't Save Every Dog

Despite Every Cell In My Body Yearning To

The bleakness of the dog sleeping on dirty rags, next to a folded fentanyl addict on the San Francisco streets, breaks my hope for utopian society.

Too common of an image

In normal, productive society, we generally stick to a common good to improve everyone’s lives, at both big and small scale. For example, I look at this dog and I know the most impactful thing, the thing that I would be most proud of myself for doing, is probably to help that dog find a stable, loving, caring environment. That is the action of immediate, highest good, and it haunts me that doing good is such a complicated pursuit.

To save the dog, I would need to wrestle with the ethics of technically taking the pet away from their owner and solve the logistics of getting the pet placed in a stable environment, in a city that I’m only visiting. Who knows if the dog ends up better? The end result might be a shelter, faced with being put down, or worse, left alone in a cage for years. Only understanding that before they had a person and now all they have are cement walls and floors.

Could I bring the dog back with me? Well, the lease says no, I can’t afford two homes, and I don’t know enough people in my current town who are willing to take in a strange dog from a different city.

But like, technically I could. I could nab that dog, clean it in the hostel shower, bring it back on the plane, hide it from my roommate, hope it doesn’t cry when I go to work, and have it live in my room. Until maybe dominoes fell and things got complicated.

I feel limited in my capacity to do good externally because I’m bound by the logistics of participating in the fabric society. If I veer too far from the courses of action that maintain my responsibilities, pay my bills, and fulfill my debts and obligations to my family, roommate, work, and society as a whole, things can fall apart fairly quickly and if everyone colored outside the lines too frequently, the entire structure could collapse. By participating in the societal structure that we all agreed on, in unspoken terms, I’ve shackled my own capacity for action. The same way I can’t just take off work every day or not shove my trash through my neighbors window, I can’t save every dog.

But isn’t that the highest purpose thing? Why even bother with anything else?

Completing an expense report is nowhere near as fulfilling as ensuring that that little dog is given the opportunity to be loved the way it deserves. But completing those expense reports allows me to also do other micro goods, because it gives me money. To apply one’s own safety vest before inflating the person next to me is necessary to ensure that I can do any good at all.

Or is this just a story that I’m telling myself instead of taking action?

Is it actually more noble to dedicate my entire life and routine to doing the things that I know will fulfill my soul? The things that I know would make all past, present, and future versions of myself deeply proud of the time that we spent on earth? Am I willing to trade comfort and security for defining purpose, and a life of deep value and intention? Is there any mathematical equation that will tell me whether a higher risk life of intimate meaning would tip the scale over a more normal life, stippled with small or less impactful deeds? Is the ultimate benefit maybe to build myself and my influence as quickly as possible to have it all? With no money, no resources, and no structure, I could save all of the dogs that my own two hands would allow, but with money and connections, I could exponentially increase my effort. Is this true, or is this just another self-serving narrative?

As of now, I don’t quite know what the right answer is. But I know that I’m uncomfortable in the paralysis that the situation presents. Every time I see a dog that I could be helping but choose the stability of my current life instead, I die a little inside. I’ll need a concrete answer to the question of what my life is pursuing, and whether my current pursuits in fact do outweigh the certainty of deeply spiritually fulfilling work that I know I could have had if only by saving that one single dog.

For now, this is what I tell myself. I have dedicated myself to creating medicines that prevent people from facing the existential vacuum of dementia. I wrote books and give them away for free, only asking people to donate to a dog shelter if they can. I support my family, emotionally and financially. I seek to do good in every interaction. I act genuinely. These are my dedicated actions, and to let the dominoes fall that support them means that I end up achieving nothing. Which means that as much as it breaks my soul, I can’t save every dog. Because of my choices and priorities, I stand by and let sorrow and misery continue.

This is one example, but there is a bit of a constant measuring, weighing, and balancing in my life of what to pursue given the unlimited options at hand, and the multitude of tradeoffs that come with each one. If you, my friendly reader, have any insight into how you’ve dealt with a situation like this before, please connect so that we all may benefit and find peace with the tradeoffs.

With love, from me to you,

Alec

P.S.-No AI was used to write, edit, or otherwise modify this article. Which may mean the article is worse, but at least it’s genuine.