Indigenous Ability

Well, that question is a little provocative, not necessarily polite conversational fodder for today’s standards. You might be thinking, “ Hatmaker, just who do you think you are to question my intestinal fortitude?” But, questions of individual courage and bravery and cowardice were commonplace for century upon century. Honor Codes in myriad forms offered different cultures tangible yardsticks by which to measure a fellow human’s grit and gumption. These questions of bravery were measured via deeds, demonstrated in actions, measured by observation of the individual hewing to the given Honor Code in day-to-day life.  Mere assertion of “ I bet I’d be brave if I had to be ” were only words that a child would utter, or despised braggadocio of some privileged adult of nobility who was exempted from tests of valor, and thusly no evidence was provided to back up the claim. Living life in such a demonstrable way allowed the smaller social circles in days when life was a...

Conscious organisms are subject to fear. That’s a good thing—for the most part. In our ancestral past a well attuned fear-mechanism was a useful survival benefit. Notice we are talking about a properly adjusted fear-calibrator inside our skulls and not what we would all recognize as “skittishness,” or over-reacting to stimuli [particularly non-harmful stimuli.] Some see the goal of being fearless as wise, but in practice it is neither attainable or desirable. Fear is our “motion detector.” It is often our first-alarm system that tells us that danger is on the horizon and it is time to take steps to avoid or to prepare and rally resources to meet and thwart detected stimuli. Fear in this context does not mean paralyzed with inaction, it means the fearful emotive energy is re-directed/utilized as energy to engage what provoked the fearful reaction. If we see the wisdom of this evolved mechanism, we understand that seeking to be fearless is not ideal, but rather seek...

The body is a time-machine. That is, the mind [the currently intangible part of the body] anticipates a future event and the tangible portion of our body [the physiological structure and internal biochemical processes and all their attendant prowess] begins behaving in a direction towards that future state. To make that clearer, the body while existing in the present is always on the look-out for what “might be on the horizon” and gets to work preparing for that possibility. We have everything in common with Pavlov’s dogs. They salivated at a bell. We do the very same thing at the viewing of a Chicago deep-dish takeout menu, or the aroma of freshly baked bread, or hearing the smooth pour of a good bourbon in a glass. We are not yet tasting whatever comestible or tipple it is we have summoned into mind by various bells, but our physiology goes into preparatory tasting mode just the same as those long-dead Russian dogs. We live in the here and now but allow our thought...

Do you consider yourself courageous? Now, whether you answered that question in the affirmative or the negative or in the “ Well, maybe, a little ” let’s now answer this… Would you like to be more courageous? That question will usually reap a universal “ Hell, yeah! Who wouldn’t? ” Now, here’s the important question: Is it possible to train for bravery? To increase courage? Is it possible to train an ineffable virtue? The answer just may be yes. [ If you have not consumed the prior two articles in this series, might I suggest you do that now so what follows has the appropriate framework .] First, it is helpful to wrap our heads around the concept that our bodies perceive like states as fact. What I mean by this is that when the human body is in an arousal state, whether that arousal be sexual, response to a perceived threat or mere interest as in “ What kind of animal is that over there behind that line of scrub?” our physiological processes behave as i...

Are you, or are you not a coward? That is a question that we would all love to answer with a hale and hearty “ Of course, I’m no coward!”  But…the answer is often less confident than that, despite whatever boasts we may make to the contrary.  At our core, in the very construct of our physiology we are seeming binary creatures. We are fight or flight, approach or avoid in our behaviors. There is wisdom in this binary schema in times of stress. As options multiply, the ability to choose wisely and well begins to confound and overload the system, slowing down vital decisions at the worst possible moment. Chances are our early ancestors had less confounding multipliers to add to the choice mix. At times of peril it might be best to return to binary simplicity as other species do.  When a loud unfamiliar noise occurs my dog either growls and investigates based on the timbre or caliber of the noise, or bolts immediately. She [my dog Tu’Sarri] is not ...