Are you passionate about something in this life, a cause to which you feel so devoted, you’re spending most of your life energy on it? Is there anything you care more about than the very breath you take that overrides every other concern?

Perhaps, if you’re like me, you’ve found your calling. To which I say, Good for you.

And then, Good luck with that. It’s going to be a very long and complicated journey filled with obstacles, challenges, setbacks, and confusion. Caring about a cause in this world is a soul’s undertaking, the journey of which isn’t for the faint hearted.

Yep. Discouragement can hit like a flash flood in a Utahn slot canyon. Emptiness, of motivation, inspiration, drive or determination, arrives like the sediment after the flash flood. All of these energies can’t be flushed away any more than one of us can affect another’s decision or choice. Me personally, I have no power over feeling like this, only I know that it comes after years of trying and failing.

Yep, I’ve reached that point of silence, for which I’m fairly certain some Persian mystic or Italian poet would offer up more elegant words than my own.

But for me, I got nothin’.

Maybe this is the natural conclusion to a nebulous undertaking of advocating for awareness of and help for the plight of rescue dogs. Of trying for three and a half years to share about their lives, or find ways to touch the heart or turn the minds of a distracted culture, one more addicted to all things bright and shiny coming through the twelve-inch screens.

Or trying to encourage a following of like-minded spirits, to connect with the pure heart of earnest intention and say,

I care, too, about what’s happening with dogs in our time. It occupies my life energy, it consumes my awareness, too. Fellow animal lover, here.

And yet, people don’t care. Or, too few do. Others are too occupied with God-only-knows-what. As. A writer devoting her life energy to animals, I can write until the cows come home, but if I’m not a social media slut or Twitter fanatic, likes and follows garnering attention on the forums as Elephant Journal or Medium.com, won’t get my words read any more than if I spent my days hiking under Colorado’s blue skies.

Yep. I’m in the Why bother, place. A crossroads for any devoted writer intent on following passionate authenticity and not pandering to the whims of the lowest common denominator.

Such is the natural conclusion of speaking too softly in a world clamoring with noise.