Dogs Barking at Dogs Barking: A Metaphor on Chaos, Order & Meaning

This morning I needed to get out of my apartment. Lately, I’ve been “locking in,” as the kids say—productive, yes, but not entirely healthy.

On my walk to the local café, I passed the firehouse where two sheriff’s cars were parked outside. I thought to myself: order does exist in the world, “big brother” is watching, and if help is ever needed, at least in this town, someone will come.

I also heard dogs barking loudly in the distance. The barking persisted, growing louder as a phrase formed in my mind:

Dogs Barking at Dogs Barking

An observation? Yes.

But to a writer, it’s also an invitation from the invisible muse to contemplate what it means—if it means anything at all.

I’ve always come up with titles at random moments. I have a long list of titles waiting for stories or poems to claim them.

This morning, I knew this was one of those phrases and one of those moments every writer dreams of—the moment when you’re not so much drafting on a blank page as you are listening to something all-knowing, something that feels both yours and not yours at the same time.

The Dogs Barking Metaphor: Chaos and Order

Given all the injustices I have faced in my own life, I couldn’t help but think: even with laws, courts, judges, lawyers, police, and sheriffs, the world remains unpredictable and, at times, dangerous and unjust.

Some people respond only to chaos, not to the laws of God, man, or the universe. Those who are suffering roam among us—like dogs barking at other dogs—feeding their demons and sometimes acting out their pain.

Amidst the illusion of order, chaos waits at every bend.

The Writer’s Reflection

At the café, I sat with the phrase “dogs barking at dogs barking,” the words circling my mind.

The invisible muse nudged the writer in me—to observe, to reflect, to find meaning in what might otherwise be just the distant sound of dogs barking.

So, I wrote. Here’s what surfaced:

The dogs barking are a metaphor for the nature of all things—the rhythm of life, the letting go of the illusion that we have any real control.

The barking is also about the madness inside each of us. Everyone has something that drives them mad, something they can’t or won’t tolerate. That inner madness is what we call “perspective.” How we see the world shapes every thought and action, inspires us to bark at the world around us or to silently carry it within.

Within the larger fabric of humanity, we’re born to dream and to hope, to love and to lose, to build and to destroy, to create and to discover, to thrive and to fail, to persist and to give up.

That is the nature of all things. We must serve our nature just as dogs serve theirs.

Dogs bark. Humans suffer.

The Soul Bears All of Human Existence

The heart is the engine that feeds the soul.

In our fleeting blip of existence, each of us must choose to take a walk and listen to the dogs barking in the distance—to remember that we are still here, for yet another day: living, breathing, aching, striving for something meaningful to fill the endless void of uncertainty

So, if you find yourself pausing at the sound of dogs barking—or anything that stirs your attention—don’t dismiss it as background noise.

For writers nothing is ever truly mundane.

We are not just chroniclers of events, but interpreters of meaning, alchemists who turn ordinary moments into something resonant and lasting.

It’s in these small, everyday observations that we discover the raw material for our stories, our poems, and our understanding of the world.

To observe is to honor experience; to write is to shape it for others. As writers, we are the librarians and historians of lived moments, the ones who build with words so that others may find meaning, comfort, or connection.

So keep listening. Keep noticing.

The world offers its metaphors freely to those willing to pay attention. Even the simplest sound—dogs barking at dogs barking—can become the thread that connects us all, reminding us that in uncertainty, in chaos, and in order, we are still here, still striving, still capable of turning life into art.