A long, thought-provoking post has shown up on AntigoneHG‘s blog this morning, which can basically be summed up as:

You know the saying that we’re limited by our fears. Well, couldn’t the same be said of our desires? Or is it a glass half empty/half full type of thing, like our perception is either limited by our fears or by our desires?”

Wouldn’t you know it, I was driving to pick up my son from daycare the other day and I wondered how much of what we do is actually conscious selection, and how much is natural biological response?

She mentions that theorb77, who happens to be my brother, hasn’t changed much in the last 5 years – I guess that might be true, I haven’t been around him that much over the past 5 years, but he’s probably my closest relative.

I guess you could say he hasn’t changed much – not that it’s a bad thing. He is a pretty mature guy, prone to bits of well-thought-out stuff. He’s bright, funny, and has a way of handling things.

I can see in his responses to AntigoneHG’s posts that he’s defending the ‘safe’ way of doing things, which is pretty much how I do things as well, most of the time.

The world is full of danger, it really is. This fear of danger, it’s a natural biological response – isn’t it? I don’t play in traffic, attempt to flirt with women that are way out of my league, or tell people what I really feel and think – I am a closely guarded person, and I know that this is a bad thing.

Let’s take the innevitable activities on May 1. Sukie demanded that we either bungie-jump or skydive. I am afraid of heights. I mean, I can look down, but my body knows I’m not supposed to be up so high, and I better get down. This is how my ancestors must have insured the survival of the bloodline – by not doing anything remotely dangerous, procreating, and passing these survival techniques on to their offspring.

Countless generations of survival, and there’s just nothing I can do about being afraid. This truly is a demon-haunted world.