Just like in the wild world an animal instinct refers to the survival fundamental of satisfying the basic needs of food, water and shelter in the human world everything revolves around these basic needs. In fact we also inherit the animal instincts such as pride, safety, anger, fear, revolt, pleasure and love. Although human nature is directly linked to the animal instincts, human abilities mark them apart from other animals by the ways of handling situations in a special way.
There cannot be a better example of the survival instinct in animals than the documentary I watched on Discovery channel sometime back. It was an amateur video shot by tourists in the African Savanna. This video showed a one of its kind battle between a herd of buffaloes, a pride of lions and two crocodiles. It was an exceptional conflict because mighty buffaloes who rescued their calf from the mouth of the lions and the crocodiles. There was a conflict of emotions of safety among the buffaloes, hunger and pride among the lions, fear of the calf and opportunity of the crocodiles that clashed in this fight. The animal instinct to revolt, or fight for pride are not taught in school but are inborn traits. We are no exceptions, we experience conflicts in our everyday life from office, school, to home. We get in conflicts with our parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, boss, children, in laws at one point or the other. Conflicts occur when there is a clash of interests and emotions of one another. Visible conflicts depict loud voices; strong emotions, assaults and visible tension while invisible conflicts are displayed in the form of stress, silence and unseen trauma. Visible or invisible conflicts create long-term rifts, and misunderstandings.
Hi Spring Blossom,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. Invisible conflicts do create long-term rifts and misunderstandings. When you walk into a room and someone purposely walks out in order to avoid you, you and everyone in the room are witness to an ongoing invisible conflict. When you roll your eyes at your parents during a conversation you are creating an invisible conflict. There are so many ways to make someone feel uncomfortable or bad, and we choose to use them frequently in our everyday lives. Sighs, smirks, and eyebrow arching are just some examples of how we choose to communicate without words. We implement these rude facial expressions into our discussions so often that we are no longer aware of how often they are being used. If we take the time to note when we are using them and try to minimize how often they’re used, we will likely notice an improvement in our relationships with others. It doesn’t take much to start improving on ourselves.
I really liked the example you used with the discovery channel. I was actually able to picture what you were talking about and it made it easy to understand your point of view. I also appreciated what you said about visible and invisible conflicts. I agree that these invisible conflicts such as rolling your eyes or smirking have been implemented so much in our daily conversations that we don't even know we are doing it. I have a really bad habit of rolling my eyes without realizing it and I'm sure this has offended many people. Simple habits like this can create conflict without even realizing it.
ReplyDeleteHello there Spring Blossom.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post! I cannot agree with you more that sensing conflict is similar to survival instincts amongst humans and animals. The example you explained was perfect, especially because I have seen that video myself. I think conflict in this case can be viewed as fear. What is interesting is that in the beginning, the buffaloes’ fear grew as the lions moved in closer. However, in the end it was the lions that were afraid of the buffaloes. In both instances of fear, the fear was confronting conflict. Conflict for these animals was in the form of fighting for survival. If we really think about it, conflict for humans is also a struggle to survive.