Instinct vs. Feelings

Prata had an interesting blog the other day. He touched on a lot of subjects, but one, "instinct vs. feelings" is an interesting concept that I have some thoughts about.

I asked him if he would not mind be blogging about this, not because I am a curious soul, but because Prata has asked me nearly the same thing in the past. I really don't know if he wants me to talk about it. The risks we take. So here we go.

Instinct verses Feelings. Let's say you have a stimulus, for instance, seeing a snake running close to your feet. Well, normal people recoil. Prata would probably kick the crap out of the snake, but I am talking about normal people – more on this later. When we are recoiling, this is an instinct. We instinctually recoil when we see what we think is a snake (hey, I recoil when I see moving vines, twigs, etc.).


Somebody did a study – I remember this from a Psych class, so forgive me if it is a load of crap – where they showed people (and other primates) a series of pictures. And they measured iris size – and it was fairly universal that everyone (and their moneys too) constricted their irises when viewing snakes. Uncontrollable. Anyway, the psychologists inferred that humans (and other primates) instinctually recoil from the image of snakes. Crap. Maybe it said they are afraid of snakes. Crap. This is not where I wanted to go.

You see, most people respond with fear when seeing snakes. Fear is an emotion. I wanted to show how emotions and instincts are separate, but perhaps they somehow seem to interact with one another. Not all emotions, but some of them. Fear can be a good motivator. Instinctually we may react to things that scare us. Snakes, for instance. But just because there is an interaction, it does not mean that they are the same thing.

Okay, this post is officially lame.

Prata said in one of his last posts, "I’m not a hard man to get along with I don’t think. I’m a man of principle though, and I am certainly picky." I think most of us think we are "not hard to get along with." We rarely think, "I am a pain in the ass."

Oh, and you know, I am hard to live with - it has taken time, but it is the truth. When I was first married, I thought to myself, "Hubbie is so fortunate to have such a loving and understanding wife. His transition from bachelorhood to husband will be so freekin' easy." I remember teaching hubbie the right way to fold socks. We both folded them differently, and my way was the "right" way, and his way was the "wrong" way. He tied them in knots (the longer socks), and rolled the shorter socks in balls. I, however, stuffed the socks so as not to stretch them. We still fold them my way, but it took him several years to master my sock-stuffing method. Bottom line is that I spent a lot of time telling him how wrong he was (really), and he listened to me and tried to get better at such a useless thing. We could have used that time to redecorate, to learn French, or to fuck. Wasted time, because I am a tad inflexible.

I don't know if you know anyone who has OCD, but when we say we are a tad inflexible, you can translate it to someone who rigidly follows a complex set of rules in order to try to control her environment.

Me, I am still scared of snakes, but I can, over the course of years, teach people to fold socks. Folding socks is not instinctual. Neither is learning French.