Termites and the reinvention of a habitual offender.
I was watching a program about sociobiology.
It’s the study of how animals create the societies in which they live. Termites, for example, live in highly organized societies. They have soldiers, workers, nurses, etc. and each of them knows his job and does it automatically out of “instinct.” The organization of their society is programmed into their DNA.
So the guy who started this line of study started with insects and then expanded his observations on up the food chain to primates and monkey societies. Naturally, when he published his findings, his final chapter included some observations about how these ideas might apply to humans and this set off a firestorm of controversy because the existing dogma was that humans only have very basic instincts like the instinct for a baby to suckle. The idea that elements of human society are instinctual was heresy.
Fast forward to this morning… as I was getting ready to go to work, I was thinking about how we invent ourselves every day. Today I woke up and decided to be who I am. I decided to be the guy with a job who goes to work and does a good job and all of that. I decided to be the same guy I was yesterday and the day before.
I could have decided to walk out the door and never look back. I could have decided to be a guy who robs banks, or who cuts lawns, or who panhandles or whatever. Every day I have the choice of who I’m going to be.
I used to think that most of what I did was simply habit because I know how powerful of a force habit can be. Habit brings us the comfort of the familiar… for good or bad.
But now I’m wondering how much of “me” is learned behavior and how much is simply an expression of deeply programmed social instincts. Not that it really matters. I’m still faced with daily choices and I’m still defined by the choices I make, but it is interesting to me to wonder how much choice I really have in my responses.
I suspect that sometimes I’m a really big termite.
