Pets

I think pets serve for many as welcome respites from the bullshit that people spout out all day long.  They are a refuge for misanthropes, and a destination for feelings of emotional warmth and openness that many people are uncomfortable expressing with actual people.

Go to your pet shelter, and watch how people talk to animals.  It is amusing, but also instructive.  People have all these latent energies that just don’t seem to get out any other way; or which, at least, help them maintain emotional elasticity and related coping skills.

I will add that of course dogs and cats are glad to see you: you are needed for food, for access to “outside”, and to pet them.  They need your affection far more than they are granting it selflessly to you.  Yet, this neediness is honest, and I suppose this makes up for it.