That's me!
Jun. 16th, 2004 09:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrsbrownQuote from an article in today's "The Age" about rats returned to the wild after 200 generations in captivity and leading to behaviour of people in response to a disaster/ change in civilisation level.
Practical intelligence seems to dominate, and a certain selfishness seems to have an impact on this so people have to push to do things, and people who are too polite or waiting for others to organise things tend to be left behind.
One of the disapointments I felt when I did my Outward Bound course was that it damaged my belief in my ability to survive. Before then, I had always known that if there was a nuclear disaster or some other Really Bad Thing I would be a person who would get through it. I believed there was something different about me that meant I would behave in a way that meant my survival.
When I did the Outward Bound course I discovered that my body didn't agree with my survival image. I got blisters, I got tired before anyone else, and, when my body was telling me to stop, nothing else was important, I didn't care if I was whining and dependant - I had to stop.
On the basis of the above quotation, I'm prepared to review my Outward Bound assessment of myself. Even on Outward Bound I displayed the characteristics above. I made the entire group of 13 stop every half hour so I could rest. It didn't matter how tired I was at the end of the day, if no-one else was organising food, I did. I've certainly never suffered from politeness or waiting for others to organise things (when they really need doing - I'm also pretty lazy).
I still think that survival relies on being lucky enough to be in the right place, in the right time, with the right skills. But I now think that I could use that luck to really good effect, given the opportunity.
Practical intelligence seems to dominate, and a certain selfishness seems to have an impact on this so people have to push to do things, and people who are too polite or waiting for others to organise things tend to be left behind.
One of the disapointments I felt when I did my Outward Bound course was that it damaged my belief in my ability to survive. Before then, I had always known that if there was a nuclear disaster or some other Really Bad Thing I would be a person who would get through it. I believed there was something different about me that meant I would behave in a way that meant my survival.
When I did the Outward Bound course I discovered that my body didn't agree with my survival image. I got blisters, I got tired before anyone else, and, when my body was telling me to stop, nothing else was important, I didn't care if I was whining and dependant - I had to stop.
On the basis of the above quotation, I'm prepared to review my Outward Bound assessment of myself. Even on Outward Bound I displayed the characteristics above. I made the entire group of 13 stop every half hour so I could rest. It didn't matter how tired I was at the end of the day, if no-one else was organising food, I did. I've certainly never suffered from politeness or waiting for others to organise things (when they really need doing - I'm also pretty lazy).
I still think that survival relies on being lucky enough to be in the right place, in the right time, with the right skills. But I now think that I could use that luck to really good effect, given the opportunity.
