Several years ago, my family had a
small mice infestation at our house. We had caught two or three mice in a
period of five days. Each one of them had been calmly waiting for us to free
them into the woods. Only the last mouse had been acting differently: she
panicked, jumped up and down – tried everything possible to get out of the
bucket and back into the house. She did not succeed; but we wondered what made
her act as she did. What we did not know was that we had caught a mother of
three baby mice. The next day when I came into my room I almost stepped on
something that looked like a pink gummy bear. When I examined it further I
recognized a baby mouse, a tiny hairless body with its eyes closed. … It was
astonishing to know that a creature that small and young, not even properly
developed had gathered all its strength to search for its mother, and in that
sense, to find the only way to be able to survive. This understanding created a
great admiration and recognition for the creature’s courage and will to survive,
in short for its instinctual character. We felt responsible for those tiny
orphans and tried to coddle them up. Unfortunately, they died just about two
days after we had found them. Our sadness about their death was probably not caused
by the actual death of something we formerly wanted to dispose of. It was much
more the sadness that the vigour of life and the will to live – that even the
tiniest creatures contain within themselves – had been wasted in the blink of
an eye.
Similarly, in
the chapter “Brute neighbors”, Henry David Thoreau describes the greatness of
animals’ instincts, and his admiration for their instinctually guided
existence. He describes the instinct as a kind of universal intelligence and “a
wisdom clarified by experience” (Thoreau 247), which actually is not achieved
through age or experience, but which is primordial. As Thoreau suggested, instinct
must be connected to, what we like to call, favored character traits. Most of
the time when acting upon our instinct the result is something truly positive.
Thus, instinct must be the origin of good
character, of bravery and intelligence. (Thoreau 247) Likewise, Louis
Menand, an American writer and academic, discusses character in his article
“Head Case” as follows:
“We think
that sucking it up, mastering our fears, is a sign of character. But do we think
that people who are naturally fearless lack character? We usually think the
opposite. Yet those people are just born lucky. Why should the rest of us have to pay a
price in dread, shame, and stomach aches to achieve a state of being that they
enjoy for nothing?”
If
character is a matter of instinct we cannot condemn those who do not have it.
But we can condemn those who do not let their instinct be part of their body
and mind. Yes, we are human. But we
are also animals. We do have an instinct, but we tend to suppress it for the
sake of what we call rationality. But we must learn to trust our animalistic
side, too. For, it sometimes is the only way to act properly. In a situation of
affliction rationality will not be the trait to turn to; only our instinct will
be able to help. Thus, instinct is the more genuine trait, and in some
situations it is the only thing that will lead us the right way. By letting
instinct take the lead once in a while, we can prove real character.
Menand, Louis. 2010. "Head Case" in The
New Yorker. Online resource.
Web. 10 January 2014. <http://www.buffalo.edu/content/dam/www/news/imported/pdf/April10/NewYorkerPsychiatry.pdf>
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New Haven/London:
Yale University Press, 2006. Print.
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