Predispositions

            They say that first impressions are important. This is very true, but have you ever stopped to consider why? Why is it that the first thing you say to someone, when you don’t even know them, is so much more important than what comes after?

            The answer is predisposition. As humans, we like to make up our minds about things before we actually know about them. It sounds like a silly thing to do, I know, but we do it anyway. When we meet a person for the first time, we’re already deciding who we think they are before they even speak – before we know anything about them. And then, from our very first interactions with them, we react to them and choose how to treat them based off that predisposition.

            However, the predisposition goes on to do much more, unless something happens to change it (and it often takes a lot to shift those initial impressions). It shapes the entire relationship with that person, because they are viewed through a lens of that predisposition. For example, if you believe someone to be rude, you are more likely to interpret things they say as rude, regardless of their intent. If you believe that someone talks too much, you’ll notice every time they are talking and automatically assume they’re talking more than someone else. If you believe someone is intelligent, you’re more likely to pay attention to what they are saying than if you believe they are stupid – and you might entirely miss the brilliant ideas of the person you considered stupid because you disregarded them without even considering.

            As you may have noticed, I’m somewhat predisposed to believe that predispositions are bad. Are they, though? I think they can be, and often are, because we just let them do their thing and go along with our lives. We don’t give some people the chances they deserve – contrariwise, we give some people far more chances than they deserve.

            So, then, why do we do this? I think it is a survival instinct. In the natural world, it is important to make a decision quickly when determining if something is a threat. If something is approaching us, we have to decide how we’re going to handle it before it is close enough to slash at us or rear our throats out. The instinct helped us survive, and therefore it has lasted into the modern world, where it functions in a similar manner – deciding if there is a threat or not. Once again, it works to a degree, and it is important to us.

            So, is predisposition good or bad? I think it all depends on the person and their awareness of it. Predispositions are good so long as we know they are there and we know to question them – to allow ourselves to re-evaluate our first impressions. That way, we have the protection provided by the instinct, without allowing ourselves to treat people as what we think they are, rather than what they are.

            Of course, some predispositions are so strong that we don’t even give some people a chance to reveal who they actually are. That is the sort of predisposition that is the hardest to fight – but it is also the most important to fight. Otherwise they could grow to control our lives.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Fear Always Works

            “Fear always works.” I watched Zootopia for the first time today and was impressed by how filled it was with social commentary, but that particular line in the movie (said by the villain) stood out to me. It’s true; fear always works. But, what if it didn’t?

            One of the reasons fear always works so well is because it’s instilled in us from childhood. Why? Because it always works and, quite frankly, is the easiest way to control someone. Why don’t we touch the things that will hurt us? Because we will be punished with something that we fear. Why don’t we eat the things that will make us sick or damage us in the future? Because we will be punished with something we fear. Why do we obey the rules set forth by parents to keep us safe or to keep them from worrying about us? Because we don’t want to be punished with something we fear.

            It continues on into the school system (we do schoolwork because we fear the consequences of failure), then into the work force (we do whatever we’re told, even sometimes when we know we shouldn’t, for fear of getting fired) and even our entire social structure (we obey the laws out of fear of fines and jail). Everything is predicated on fear. So, is it such a surprise that fear is used so much to control people?

            Okay, so the question then becomes, why do we always use fear? Quite simply, because it’s so easy. Look at sheep herding. With the right amount of fear in the right place, the sheep will go wherever the shepherd wants. It’s the same with people – it preys upon our survival instincts, our natural desire to stay safe. And it takes so little effort.

            Children are taught that they are to follow the rules or they’ll be punished. This simple bullying is enough to keep them mostly in line. They will follow rules that make no sense to them, just because they fear the consequences. Parents see nothing wrong with this – and why should they? They were raised the same way, and it held true for everything in the rest of their lives.

            Now, of course, they could always try explaining the rules to their children. That way they would hopefully understand why the rules are there and why they should be followed. They could be taught to keep themselves to be safe, and to respect and understand the feelings of others. But that takes a lot of time and most people don’t believe children are capable of understanding – or remembering. But a punishment, that is easy to remember.

            Still, I can’t help wondering what the world would be like if we were all raised to be mindful and empathetic rather than fearful. Would the world be a better, more compassionate place? Or would fear tactics, on the occasions that people decided to use them, become even more powerful because we aren’t so used to dealing with it?

            Either way, it seems like fear will always continue to work. I guess what we need to do is raise people to overcome fears – that way, someday, fear will no longer work.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Do Ants Value Life?

            While observing the ants exploring my house (particularly the kitchen) this spring, I started to wonder: do ants value life?

            As general rule, living beings have strong survival instincts. It makes sense – an animal that doesn’t care if it lives or dies is less likely to survive to reproduce, eliminating those characteristics from the DNA chains. Bet what about creatures that are literally born to serve?

            Ants obviously have a high fatality rate. They go out in droves seeking food and many never come back. Confronted with a threat, an ant will struggle to stay alive. Yet, at the same time, an ant that dies on patrol is forgotten (apart from the pheromones it emits to alert the colony of threats).

            What value does a colony place on a lowly worker? They are mass-produced, specifically because of how many of them die. It seems as though ants don’t care about life at all – each of them living only to further the existence of the colony.

            At the same time, ants take extremely good care of their young. Further to that, they usually have duties around the nest when they are younger and aren’t sent out foraging until closer to the end of their life spans. This suggests a certain respect for the outside world and a desire to prolong the lives of the individual ants.

            Yet, this also serves a practical purpose – why send out the young, who still have a lot of work left in them, when the old are available? So, it could simply be survival.

            Which leaves me here, still wondering. What is the value an ant places on life? Perhaps they simply don’t have time to ponder it, with the possible exception of the queens – who seem to be the whole reason why most colonies exist in the first place.

            So, does a queen ant value life? She lives up to thirty years – ten or more times the length of regular ants – so she has plenty of time to ponder. These are her children we’re talking about, living and dying while she watches – generation after generation. Does she mourn the loss of a worker, or are there so many that she simply doesn’t care? Does she, perhaps, value only her own life?

            Now I need to hire a team of scientists to develop a way to talk to ants so we can ask them.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

Also, make sure you check out my wife's blog and her life coaching website.


If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

What is it About Darkness?

            Colleen was out of the country with her family for most of the week, leaving me at home and in charge of the various animals in the house (For those who don’t regularly follow this blog, I live with my in-laws with the house separated into two separate units). It was on an overcast night when I was taking the dog out before bed that I noticed just how dark it was. We live out in the country, so the only lights around at night are the ones on the houses. Outside the bubble of light from the house, the rest of the one-acre property was almost completely black.

            My stomach clenched in its way of saying, “We’re not really going out there, are we?” while the dog tugged playfully at the end of his leash. It struck me, then, how much instinct we have built into our system – and close to the top of those instincts is a fear of the dark.

            I found myself wondering why that is. The answer is obvious for if we look to the past, before we had all this technology – back then, there was a lot of danger out in the darkness. Now, though, we've tamed the world. At least, the parts we live in. There’s almost no chance of a threat being out there.

            Yet, still, our instincts tell us to freeze – to stay in the safety of the light. We know it is safe. In my case, I even had a dog with me, with senses far better than mine, showing no signs of distress.

            Still, I hesitated. My instincts told me not to go. I realized that it was more about the uncertainty than the darkness itself. I'm used to being able to see everything around me, of knowing when there was a threat. What the darkness hid wasn't something I was afraid of, but the potential of something – anything – being out there. The fear wasn't of the dark, but of the inability to know for certain everything was fine, even though I was already certain.

            Once I left the “safety” of the light, my eyes started adjusting to the darkness. It wasn't so much that I could see everything, but I could see enough to feel comfortable and confident. That’s when I realised there could be something more behind our innate fear of darkness.

            Our ability to create light.

            Ever since we discovered how to make fire, humans have been able to control light and banish the darkness. Our instincts became based around staying in the light, where we could see clearly. Meanwhile, those same instincts gradually forgot that by being out in the darkness for just a little while, our eyes adjust and we can actually see fairly well. So, we keep to the light.

            The ironic part is that someone (or something) out in the dark can actually see more than someone in the light. More than that, from the darkness, someone in the light sticks out as a clear target.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

The Deer-ostrich

             I saw a deer today. Well, it may have been part ostrich, as all I saw was a body with some legs and a neck disappearing into the snow. I've never actually seen a deer in the wild before. All my life, my parents have said “There’s a deer!” and by the time I looked, there were no deer anywhere.

            I have no idea where I'm going with this; that just seemed like a good way to start. After all, who doesn't love a deer-ostrich story? Now, of course, I have to write one.

            Once, there was a deer-ostrich. He was a beautiful fellow with a fine coat of fur and a long feathered neck. Life was good for him, since he could reach up high to eat from trees, or down to the ground to eat grass, if he pleased.

His only trouble was that he didn't know how to handle his fear. Two sets of instincts told him, simultaneously, that at the first sign of trouble, he should bury his head in the ground and run. As you can imagine, this resulted in some ungainly flights, often leaving deep trenches right up to trees.

            Now, the deer-ostrich was one of a kind, so he had no one to teach him what he should do if a predator were to spot him. So he decided to ask a deer for some advice.

            “If you see a wolf, run!” the deer insisted. “Don’t mind the lions, they prefer ostriches.”

            “Oh deer, but I am a deer-ostrich!” the deer-ostrich replied. “What if the lion prefers me?”

            “Ask an ostrich,” the deer said with a shrug.

            That’s just what the deer-ostrich did.

            “If you see a lion, just bury your head in the ground,” the ostrich said. “The lion will think you’re an odd type of bush and leave you alone. Wolves prefer to eat deer.”

             At that point in time, a lion happened upon them. Fighting his instinct to run, the deer-ostrich followed the ostrich’s lead and buried his head in the ground.

            The lion wasn't fooled, as the ostrich had claimed he’d be. What he saw was a tasty feathery meal next to a silly deer with its head in the ground.

            When the deer-ostrich emerged, he found himself safe and alone. Satisfied that he now knew how to survive when he was afraid, he went about his life, running from the wolves and burying his head around lions.

            The system worked for years, until he chanced upon a lion and a wolf at the same time. In a panic, the deer-ostrich had to choose one of his defences. Since the lion was closer, he buried his head.

            The lion went about its business, but the wolf was delighted to come across a deer who, with its head in the ground, couldn't see him coming. It was the easiest dinner the wolf had ever gotten, although upon telling others of his luck, he did have something to say.

            “But, my, did that deer taste fowl!”

            The moral of the story is: Don’t make up stories on the spot at midnight.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.