Blog Dis
Gut instinct
2025-04-01
Like totally. Like, I'm a big believer in total gut instinct... like I said, totally. How often do we confuse instinct with intelligence? How often do we automatically assume because an individual has proven in the past to display great analytical thinking and mental prowess that they should in all cases make the right and only decision for themselves and everyone else?
I think the confusion between the two elements of gut instinct and intelligence are just that, too often confused.
Some of the smartest people I know are dullards when it comes to using instinct. The problem is the rational, left thinking brain that propels otherwise intelligent people to make dumb-a** decisions, all because they have neglected or ignored their gut instinct. Maybe the same can be said of highly intelligent and artistic individuals who lean heavily on their right-thinking brain. Firstly, however, let us all agree that intelligence is a degree of perspective, from the person believing themselves to be intelligent and also from the person judging the individual as being intelligent. What I may find to be intelligent may not necessarily fall under someone else's idea of smart. Intelligence varies, too. Some persons have street-smarts and a natural inclination towards criminal behaviour in their thinking and doing, but when it comes to the practical issues of life and coping with societal demands, they fall way short of the mark. Whereas, some might think that bending to fit in with societal demands isn't smart to begin with, because you're not living your life; you are living a version of their idea of how life should be lived. And here, I'm thinking of late-night performers, like comedians, who keep late working hours, similar to musicians who while on the road touring, will keep erratic hours. But they are living their truth, to which they apply their intelligence, because they will surely encounter those persons who attempt to superimpose their idea of life onto them, forcing them to play the game of life, to adhere to rules set by someone else.
Instinct, on the other hand, is for one and all. Instinct is the invisible punch in the stomach that all humans are born with, from the start when their mind opens to accept new concepts, right up until the day you kick the bucket. If ever you've been in a situation where your instinct is telling you something is wrong, by way of that feeling as though your belly has dropped, you have experienced instinct. At this point, this is where intelligence gets in the way of instinct. We use our intelligence to rationalize a situation, or how someone is behaving, and we tell ourselves, "I'm over-reacting. I'm reading too much into the situation." I see this with people when they begin to date a new love-interest. I've heard so many girlfriends declare to me, "He gives me butterflies!" They wrongly work on the basis that this burgeoning liaison must be special because they feel butterflies, when it fact their instinct is screaming at them, as loud as it can, "Run away, fool! Run fast! Run hard!"
Butterflies are wonderful pollinators, but they do not have a physiological impact on your body when it comes to a potential bed-mate. Your loins do and when your loins take over, your brains fall off the bed.
Instinct is survival; the very core of the development of human beings who had to learn from day one what was poisonous or delicious, what was cold or hot, what would provide shelter or diminish the capacity for continuing to live. Modern humans don't think on these elemental terms because we're no longer hunter/gatherers who absolutely have to kill to eat, to live, to survive. We merely head to the grocery store to buy our food for the coming week, or for some daily. Yet, with early humans, their instinct came with the entire body package and through the process of trial and error, their instinct grew stronger until living and surviving were a natural process. I wonder if early humans reflected on the right and wrong of things, whether their decisions were moral or balanced or unfair. I think not, actually, because their options were simple vs modern humans who are weighed down by a multitude of options and therefore decisions. This might explain why we choose to think through everything, rather than to allow our instinct to guide us solely. This in its simplest form is the nature of instinct.
So why do modern humans constantly challenge our own instinct and ignore the signs? Our logical, left-thinking brains and their super-duper intelligence have taught us to be instinctively stupid. But wait, there is still that eureka moment when we stumble upon something, anything new... a new idea, a new person, a new way of resolving problems. When we encounter these moments, we actually believe we have created a new thing in the Universe when in truth what we've encountered is the accuracy of instinct.
My father (RIP), was blessed with killer instinct about people from the get go, literally within the first few seconds of meeting a new person. He merely had to be in the person's presence to size them up. So did my grandmother, Gertrude, who in Newfoundland was considered a witch, as funny as this comes across, stating it in the here and now. She had an uncanny ability to size up people, and I appear to have inherited this trait. I've learned to listen to this voice. Rarely is my instinct wrong. It guides me when I am dealing with people who have ulterior motives or who only want to string me along for the sake of playing games of power and control. Where my left-thinking rational brain causes me trouble is when I dialogue with persons online; they're able to mask their identity and intentions, but eventually these too are shown to be who they are in real life. I am now at the point where I only value my instinct, because my intelligence has failed me too often. I've learned the hard way not to be too trusting, or to place my faith in mere words.
I use this expression a lot, which I learned from another friend, "Don't brag about your intentions, talk about your accomplishments."
Now, when someone brags to me about how they'll change, what they plan on doing for me, who they really are.. I take it at face value, only to the stage of listening to them, after which I immediately disregard what I've been told. My instinct wants verifiable proof vs my intelligence that lies to me, telling me they can't pull the wool over my eyes because I'm smarter. So I am happily at this stage in life, when I allow my instinct to supersede my life decisions, and I place my life with my instinct, and judge accordingly.
Instinct is predicated on the basis of survival, ensuring our ability to thrive and grow as its primary goal. We each are just better off to learn how to listen to our instinct more closely, to avoid falling into that trap of letting our brains do all the thinking.
I think the confusion between the two elements of gut instinct and intelligence are just that, too often confused.
Some of the smartest people I know are dullards when it comes to using instinct. The problem is the rational, left thinking brain that propels otherwise intelligent people to make dumb-a** decisions, all because they have neglected or ignored their gut instinct. Maybe the same can be said of highly intelligent and artistic individuals who lean heavily on their right-thinking brain. Firstly, however, let us all agree that intelligence is a degree of perspective, from the person believing themselves to be intelligent and also from the person judging the individual as being intelligent. What I may find to be intelligent may not necessarily fall under someone else's idea of smart. Intelligence varies, too. Some persons have street-smarts and a natural inclination towards criminal behaviour in their thinking and doing, but when it comes to the practical issues of life and coping with societal demands, they fall way short of the mark. Whereas, some might think that bending to fit in with societal demands isn't smart to begin with, because you're not living your life; you are living a version of their idea of how life should be lived. And here, I'm thinking of late-night performers, like comedians, who keep late working hours, similar to musicians who while on the road touring, will keep erratic hours. But they are living their truth, to which they apply their intelligence, because they will surely encounter those persons who attempt to superimpose their idea of life onto them, forcing them to play the game of life, to adhere to rules set by someone else.
Instinct, on the other hand, is for one and all. Instinct is the invisible punch in the stomach that all humans are born with, from the start when their mind opens to accept new concepts, right up until the day you kick the bucket. If ever you've been in a situation where your instinct is telling you something is wrong, by way of that feeling as though your belly has dropped, you have experienced instinct. At this point, this is where intelligence gets in the way of instinct. We use our intelligence to rationalize a situation, or how someone is behaving, and we tell ourselves, "I'm over-reacting. I'm reading too much into the situation." I see this with people when they begin to date a new love-interest. I've heard so many girlfriends declare to me, "He gives me butterflies!" They wrongly work on the basis that this burgeoning liaison must be special because they feel butterflies, when it fact their instinct is screaming at them, as loud as it can, "Run away, fool! Run fast! Run hard!"
Butterflies are wonderful pollinators, but they do not have a physiological impact on your body when it comes to a potential bed-mate. Your loins do and when your loins take over, your brains fall off the bed.
Instinct is survival; the very core of the development of human beings who had to learn from day one what was poisonous or delicious, what was cold or hot, what would provide shelter or diminish the capacity for continuing to live. Modern humans don't think on these elemental terms because we're no longer hunter/gatherers who absolutely have to kill to eat, to live, to survive. We merely head to the grocery store to buy our food for the coming week, or for some daily. Yet, with early humans, their instinct came with the entire body package and through the process of trial and error, their instinct grew stronger until living and surviving were a natural process. I wonder if early humans reflected on the right and wrong of things, whether their decisions were moral or balanced or unfair. I think not, actually, because their options were simple vs modern humans who are weighed down by a multitude of options and therefore decisions. This might explain why we choose to think through everything, rather than to allow our instinct to guide us solely. This in its simplest form is the nature of instinct.
So why do modern humans constantly challenge our own instinct and ignore the signs? Our logical, left-thinking brains and their super-duper intelligence have taught us to be instinctively stupid. But wait, there is still that eureka moment when we stumble upon something, anything new... a new idea, a new person, a new way of resolving problems. When we encounter these moments, we actually believe we have created a new thing in the Universe when in truth what we've encountered is the accuracy of instinct.
My father (RIP), was blessed with killer instinct about people from the get go, literally within the first few seconds of meeting a new person. He merely had to be in the person's presence to size them up. So did my grandmother, Gertrude, who in Newfoundland was considered a witch, as funny as this comes across, stating it in the here and now. She had an uncanny ability to size up people, and I appear to have inherited this trait. I've learned to listen to this voice. Rarely is my instinct wrong. It guides me when I am dealing with people who have ulterior motives or who only want to string me along for the sake of playing games of power and control. Where my left-thinking rational brain causes me trouble is when I dialogue with persons online; they're able to mask their identity and intentions, but eventually these too are shown to be who they are in real life. I am now at the point where I only value my instinct, because my intelligence has failed me too often. I've learned the hard way not to be too trusting, or to place my faith in mere words.
I use this expression a lot, which I learned from another friend, "Don't brag about your intentions, talk about your accomplishments."
Now, when someone brags to me about how they'll change, what they plan on doing for me, who they really are.. I take it at face value, only to the stage of listening to them, after which I immediately disregard what I've been told. My instinct wants verifiable proof vs my intelligence that lies to me, telling me they can't pull the wool over my eyes because I'm smarter. So I am happily at this stage in life, when I allow my instinct to supersede my life decisions, and I place my life with my instinct, and judge accordingly.
Instinct is predicated on the basis of survival, ensuring our ability to thrive and grow as its primary goal. We each are just better off to learn how to listen to our instinct more closely, to avoid falling into that trap of letting our brains do all the thinking.
