Emotional Support Alligators, Brooklyn 99 and You

There's a 65-year-old man, Henry, who lives near Philadelphia who has depression. He didn't want to take medicine but he noticed he was happier when he was near his alligator, Wally.

Yes, a guy in Philadelphia has an alligator named Wally. If you can get past that, you can be okay with the rest of this. The doctor agreed to register Wally as an emotional support animal and the man now walks Wally around the neighborhood, hopefully not during winter and stuff.

He hugs. He likes to eat a lot of chicken wings but doesn't eat cats or goldfish. So basically, he is Shaun, who is also from Florida, but currently is a mammal, still.

This week, we've been thinking a lot about the the lenses with which we view things and how they help us process stuff, not necessarily alligators as service animals, but our lives and times that might not be awesome.

Those three lenses are:

The long lens

The reverse lens

The wide lens

So, let's say I just got yelled at by my boss or Shaun. When I look back at our discussion, which was (Cough) heated I can use these lenses to have a better understanding of what happened and also to figure out how to move forward.

When I use the reverse lens, I look at everything my boss or Shaun said from their point of view. I think about why they said what they said, what their wants, motivation and backstory is. Why did they say those things? What were they feeling?

That sometimes can give you compassion about it.

When I use the long lens, I think about those annoying things they said and ask myself, "Am I still going to be annoyed about this in six months? Two months? Two hours?" Is this really important?

I often think, "Is someone going to jail or dying because of this?" Then I tell myself to chill.

The point is to decrease the intensity of those negative feelings that are overwhelming you right after the conversation.

This brings us to the wide lens. The wide lens still focuses on you, but it puts the incident into the bigger context of your life. Yeah, your boss sucked, but EVERYONE in your life (hopefully) doesn't suck. Look at how much bigger your life is than just this experience. How many other person were cool with you today, this week? Maybe your boss isjust a schmuck. That's on them. Not you.

When bad things happen, we often make that one bad event (no matter how small) into this massive chapter in our life's story, falling into the trap of self-doubt and low self worth, but the thing is? Most of the time that one bad event is just someone else being a buttface. It doesn't deserve to be a chapter in your story. It shouldn't become the myth of your life. Every event has multiple interpretations that can be seen through so many lenses.

Interpretations are subjective so pick the interpretation you want for the incidents in your life. Pick them apart and choose the same way we do when we build stories for the characters in our novel.

Writing Tip of the Pod:

Don't be afraid to write weird quirky books with weird quirky characters, because damn it? Life is weird.

Dog Tip for Life:

Dogs are better than alligators.

Shout Out!

The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.

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My next book, IN THE WOODS, appears in July with Steve Wedel. It's scary and one of