Instinct

If there’s a sixth sense, I’m willing to bet this is it. See, we humans sort of lost our right to instinct. It makes sense: we think too much. Animals don’t have this problem. You never really see an animal doing something against its better judgment. The animal does what it feels drawn to do, what its instincts tell it to do. In some cases, the animal will forgo previous patterns of behavior on such a basis. There isn’t a lot of evidence supporting Extra-Sensory Perception as the sixth sense, but there is a hell of a lot of evidence for instinct, documented or otherwise. It’s really the source of the phrase “hindsight is always 20/20″ – meaning when you look back on some monumental change, horrible occurrence or otherwise, you realize you had a feeling all along something was coming, though you didn’t know what. It’s vague like that, which is probably the reason we don’t think much on it. See, if instinct told us in vivid move prophecy images or even flashed of what was going to happen, we probably would pay a lot more attention to it. Such is not the way of things, however. Instinct gives us arguably a sense of something. It doesn’t work by itself, it requires faith, a precious commodity these days. Even more so instinct works probably the same way in us as it does in the rest of the animal world, that being an insistent feeling that assaults more often than not, which, like many other factors of the human condition, is immediately met with indecision, defense, self-doubt and questioning. Seriously folks, I swear if we were in the wild in our present state the predators would give up on us because we would be too easy to kill and that’s saying something. Think about a gazelle standing out in the great savannah of Africa with a lioness creeping up on it. The gazelle stops, becomes immediately aware of a pressing sense of danger. Its hackles stands on end, muscle tenses…of course then the gazelle wonders what teh meaning of this is? What is the feeling of danger – there’s obviously no danger about, after all, it’s the middle of the day and one mustn’t spend all his life worrying about such things – it’s probably nothing and there’s no sense in getting all riled up about it – blood pressure, you know and it’s not – of course at this point the Gazelle is missing half of its guts because well, you just don’t debate shit like that when you’re a gazelle, the lions don’t really care too much about it.

We are taught from a very young age to ignore our instincts. When our imaginations run a bit wild and we are developing our danger sense, ergo we get the willies at night over one thing or another, we have our parents to assure us not only that it’s alright, but that it’s always alright – there’s nothing to worry about, we’re safe. Of course later we’ll be told to be scared of cars and predators and many other things that, statistically speaking, are not extremely likely to happen to us (but they might and to some people they do), then we are taught to ignore and suppress impulses and then taught to fear other things. In the end, we are given instincts, or rather rote paths of understanding ingrained by nurturing, media, government, religion or many other factors. It’s not just about fight or flight here, it’s not always about looking out for the lion, it’s about the fact that we like to pretend that we aren’t animals, that we are separated from them. Let’s face it: we are, very much so, but not necessarily in the best of ways. We are content to say that we exceed the standards and surpass the world of animalia because well, we think too much. Hell, I know I’m a prime example. What we don’t realize is that our instincts, like those of our quadruped family members, are still there, insistent and seldom wrong. No matter how much we repress, we cannot destroy. The funny part is that when you really listen to these instincts they generally don’t make you feel better or more self-aware; they scare the shit out of you, because they have a tendency to defeat rationale, which is the foundation of why we don’t need them after all. Herein lies the problem – instincts are based on faith – a thing we humans have precious little of to go around. Some of the most religious people you know (I can almost certainly guarantee) are devout out of the concept that they don’t know more than that they believe, which is enough for the majority of people. It’s one of those things that go back to what I describe as the nature of true magic, that being the stuff that makes everything work. Even in this world of banality we, being just as much a part of it as anything else, are connected to that stream that may be inclined to throw us a little hint in the grand game of life every now and then. Those who are keen on hearing such things generally are well rewarded and generally then look for more, as is the way with humans, and consider that they must be psychic, can divine the winning lotto numbers and cure all of your ailments by breaking an egg on your stomach. In actuality it’s not that it’s a great miracle, it’s that we ignore it the other 99% of the time so, when we listen, it’s some kind of life affirming experience. The Gazelle begs to differ, as does the lion. It’s all the daily grind to them.Try talking to them about angst, by the way – the gazelle won’t bother, he’ll get the hell away from you, as most people want to (they feel that impending whiny drama – but don’t listen to their instincts). The lion, well – see the previous example of the gazelle trying to think things over.

Now, I’m not saying that if we listened to our instincts more we’d have some supernatural predetermination ability or that life would go our way more often or whatnot, I’m just saying that we might feel better about all of it. At the very least, listening to our instincts requires that we cut a lot of the worrying down and that would make all of our lives easier.