Culture

Of Bark, Bite, and the Psychology of Empty Noise



Some days, you’re the dog wagging your tail, just vibing in the sun. Other days, you hear the barking. Oh, the barking. It’s constant. It’s performative. It’s echoing in the hallway, bouncing off cubicle walls, seeping through email threads and Slack messages.

> “We should totally revamp this program!”
> “Let’s disrupt the model!”
> “We need a 10-point strategic vision by Friday!”
> Bark bark bark.

And you know what I want to say (in my best cool-girl-in-a-Tarantino-film voice)?

> “Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?”

Because let’s be real: there’s a whole ecosystem of people at work, on social media, in family group chats who bark with such intensity you’d think they were the lead in a Broadway musical called Huff & Puff: The Grandstanding Opera.


But when it’s time to take action? To step into the arena? To move from loud declarations to actual implementation? Crickets. Crickets wearing headsets, asking to push the meeting to next week.

Look, I’m not against a good bark. A bark can warn, protect, signal excitement, say “I care.” But I am allergic to hollow noise. The type that chews up airspace and fills the room with urgency but no follow-through.

In psychology, we talk about action versus intention. Talking a big game activates the reward centers in the brain. It tricks us into feeling like we did something without actually doing it. But progress isn’t barked into being. It’s built usually in silence, sweat, and spreadsheets.

So today, I’m checking myself too. Am I barking about needing rest without ever actually putting my phone down? Am I barking about needing a vacation while triple-booking my calendar?

Am I barking about change… or biting into it?

Because at the end of the day, I’d rather be a bite-sized doer than a full-throated howler spinning in circles.

So go ahead. Bark if you must. But just know this psychologist is watching tail tilted, eyebrow raised and quietly deciding if the bark is boldness… or just background noise.

1 reply »

  1. It’s Okay to Sing
    Yet Without the
    Dance We Truly

    Go No WHere

    Yet

    HeaR
    With SMiLes
    Dear Miriam Remembering
    The Shut-in Days of 66 Months
    of the Worst Assessed Pain and Numb
    True in my Bedroom Singing away even
    24 Hours in a Day Yet Fingers Dancing

    Is Not Enough

    as i Watched

    The Fluids of my
    Life Surround my
    Ankles in a New Found
    Way of Drowning in One Place

    LeSSoN LEaRNeD The benefits of
    22,060 MiLes of Public Dance to Date
    in 142 Months Since The Drowning of my Feet
    Yes Ankle Deep is Really Truly Incredible as Now

    i Feel Such FRiEnDS With Gravity Basically Cloud
    Sourcing my Way Gliding Floating on Terrestrial Store

    (With Empty Pockets giving smiles away for Totally Free
    Yes Freddy
    Free Loader
    Style iNDeeD)

    Floors in
    Effortless
    Wu Wei Ease

    It’s True Once
    Again a Song is Not Enough

    Being Attached to a Screen
    Without Colors Spreading From
    Deep Within is a Kind of Hellish Torture on

    Earth and a Kind of Slow Boil Humans Do Adapt to too..

    True it’s Possible
    to Adapt to Hell

    Yet It’s really

    not the best

    place

    to

    be
    With SMiLes

    Other than that Just
    Another Day With the Big Top Bottom of the
    Circus Proving Money is the God HeaR

    Just falling
    on deaf

    ears…

    on ‘5th
    Avenue’

    falling

    falling

    fAiLiNG

    Letting those
    Most Vulnerable
    Marginalized and Oppressed

    Just die Just die extending wishes

    Globally True

    of Misery
    Suffering
    And Even
    Torturing
    By Alligator Jaws

    To All 65 Million USA Hispanics
    By Vapid Lips Molded (looming) By Silicone of course

    Holding the Hand of the Great Halloween PumPKiN

    Rotting
    Below a Soul

    How do i manage
    a smile out of all of this

    i’ll Have to Dance And Sing
    Some More to Do it Now…

    Other than that thanks
    for some free rental

    space

    to vent
    for Copy
    and Paste
    of course with SMiLes

    For my ReTired Relatives
    Who Have Hours on StArt to
    Be PArt of the Team of ‘Nature Births
    Our Breath to LoVE iN Peace’ Not Giving
    Up the ‘Faith’ Never ever Never now no Matter

    How Many Times They Nail ‘The Little Brown Carpenter’ to

    A Cross

    All for the
    Sake of
    A Dollar

    Sign

    for those
    Lost in
    ‘SoYLeNT’ Green…

    Other than that a Short
    History of the Republican
    Party and me GW Bush Cut Taxes
    And Raised The Deficit so i would pay Less Taxes

    Trump Did His First Tax Cuts and Deficit Increase so

    i Would pay No Taxes at All And Now His Latest

    Effort Means at 65 i Can Take More Money Out

    Of my IRA and Pay No Taxes on That Either

    Yet Honestly
    i Never Needed
    to Build a Golden
    Pyramid Out of the
    Flesh and Blood of the
    Vulnerable and the Children
    Still to Come Who Will Be Charged

    With the Gifts i Never Really Needed at all

    And Sadly as Nature Dances and Sings Her
    Karma of Action and Consequence Perhaps

    Even any

    freedoms
    at all true
    what selfish
    greed brings to
    Any Animal Species out

    of balance…

    basically
    they go away
    slowly yet surely for real…

    to Quote ‘Michael Murphy’

    Nothing is Our Own except
    For this Breath Mother Nature
    Gifts to LiVE iN LoVE iN Peace
    Together With One Another For Real

    True i Paraphrased it Too Now to put

    ‘the Plug’

    in this

    TSuNaMi Hehe… True

    Freedom is More than
    only Red White

    And

    Blue…

    Freedom Without
    Do For All Is Just Dead

    Dead

    Dead Dead….

    With More Deaths to Come…

    Happy Fourth of July in Advance..:)

    Like

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