03/03/2023 I got a bill
Our humanity is not civility; our humanity is our animality.
I got a bill, one that I did not expect.
My reaction, of course, — as an over-worked, underpaid, mentally ill student, during an economic crisis of inflation living costs and energy prices — was to get angry. Anger has a physiological response linked to the adrenal gland, a response initially programmed to keep our primordial ancestors alive.
This is called the fight or flight response.
The issue at hand is that I did not have a sabre-tooth tiger to evade, a warring clan to combat nor any physical opponent for that matter (though the argument whether the cozzie livs are caused by a physical opposition is another matter). Therefore I am now in fight or flight mode but without any opponent to direct my mind, my passions, my energy untoward. I practice breathing and counting; “1…2…3…” I got to ten and I’m still fuming. This is now a case of my mind working under the influence of chemical rage. I notice this because as my imagination wonders and believe me as a creative, I have an active imagination, my imagination wonders towards violence. Unwarranted chaos.
Suddenly all things that came under my perception or observation I now saw through a red-tinted haze. Things that would otherwise bring me positively to awe, smile or laugh now render no emotional response as my minds eye is entirely focused on fighting a bill. I can’t fight a bill. The hope arises that on my journey home I happen to bump into some nemesis of mine to project my unfulfilled violent quandary onto.
I hesitated my train of thought. I am grateful enough to have the power of self-reflection and thus have the ability to observe my thoughts and feelings as I have them. So, excuse the honesty in my ramblings here but if we are to get anywhere close to an authentic true understanding of ourselves we must begin with honesty.
I had already noticed my anger as it arose but now observed myself looking for a way out, a release, an end, as comes with feelings of anger, adrenaline, fight or flight. Through this my imagination was inventing obstacles for me to overcome — such as the hope somebody would say something to me out of turn that might possibly merit a physical retort. Within this mind — body connection I realised to myself, in the biological or evolutionary sense anger is a survival response and yet we are no longer living in a world where physical combat or flight is (always) necessary for survival. We call this Society.
Society asks it’s participants, through a cultural assumption of a social contract that we will lean towards our civility rather than giving in to our bestial desires. Some people are encouraged into this more than others through the teaching of emotional regulation. Luckily, I’ve had enough therapy and self-discipline at this point not to start any fires. But fight or flight still remains an inherent part of our physiology. I am not alone in saying that we’ve all had an unfortunate surprise that sent us wishing ill towards our fellow beings. But it’s also unfortunate that there are no sabre-tooth tigers or physical obstacles that we can go and face when our fight or flight response gets triggered. To try and tame the inner beast, I thought that I could go expend some energy with a run or a boxing bag or pumping iron at the gym. Instead, I decided to write as I contemplated these aforementioned thoughts.
In my reflections of biological existence within civil society, I began to question why something so innate to our physical being is deemed animal. Without question we are animals, so, perhaps our animality is actually our humanity. Not our civility. The civility is the cage of norms and values and expectations we place around ourselves and others through a distinct cultural lens. A prohibition of innate primal drives. Yet, what would be deemed civilized by one culture would not be deemed civilized by another; and vice versa. Perhaps the spectrum of human emotion itself, those emotions that we cannot escape from like anger, happiness, fear, love, are the universal language between humans; not the way in which we ‘deal’ with these emotions but the way in which we experience them.
To speak on behalf of my society, I see us as contending with our own emotions much in the same way that our ancestors would have contended with dangers. We inhibit ourselves for the sake of a descent into a chaotic anarchy of barbarism. But these biological yet emotional responses are integral to our existence. Our humanity is actually our animality because animals experience these same base-line instinctual survival responses in the same physiological way that we do.
Our humanity is found not within the control of our emotions but within the experience and expression of them.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Tl;dr — — I got a bill, thought it was a tiger, fuck society.
