Everyday instinct
 

I've got this weird bad instinctual juju happening and I don't know what to make of it.

Even while reasoning something out, it could be anything, I have a feeling about it, an instinct if you will. It's not some new-agey-kind-of-thing, but a pull one way or the other that may have nothing to do with analytical thinking. It's emotional and it could be for whatever reason. Sometimes I go with the feeling, other times I do not, depending if my thinking goes along with it. I rely on these instincts to a somewhat strong degree and it's hard to ignore them, and anyway I find them helpful in daily life, particularly in new situations or with new people. I get a feeling.

Lately my thinking seems the same, but my instincts are goofed up and it is sort of affecting my thinking, sometimes. It is uncomfortable. I'm having to second guess myself x2. It seems to me I remember a few instances of this over short periods of time in the past, but it is unusual.

Tell me about this if you would, about your own experience. Thanks.

Based on the example of this OP, I don't think humans benefit from "instincts."

We use our grand gift of deductive reasoning, something other creatures lack.
As both a pro and a con... we have experience and education to guide our lives.

It's just emotion vs. logic. Someone cuts me off while I'm driving and I want to run him off the road. Nevermind that he only cost me a fraction of a second to get where I'm going, and retaliating won't benefit me. Sometimes what you know and what you feel are in agreement, sometimes not. You just have to do what your head says is right, even when your heart is screaming at you to do otherwise.

It was just part of our evolution to have instincts that would become hard wired and would activate before our conscience would put it together. It is based off a principle that similar happening of stimuli will produce similar [negative] effects [that one wishes to avoid].

If your instincts are clearly giving you the wrong signals... there are positive reinforcement techniques to prevent this... would you say you are experiencing anxiety?

Augi: Yes, I am beginning to feel some anxiety because I don't want to continue to make these mistakes. I'm having trouble "reading" people if you know what I mean--my instinct or gut feeling of who or what or how a person may be. I think it may be something we all do to some degree when meeting a new person, and that we learned at a very early age through experience or influence. These instincts are hard to ignore, and can be a kind of prejudice no matter how benign.

Since I have been broadening my horizons lately, I am meeting many new people and experiencing new things. Since the world experience I bring to the table is limited I am working with limited instincts, and when I learn more or later stop to think about them, my instincts were sometimes glaringly wrong whether the assumption was complimentary or not. And therein lies the problem I think--assumption. Not judgement (analytical), but assumption (instinct).

Well that is just it. You are outside your comfort zone. It is just like learning a new language---you use wrong words, conjugate the verbs wrong and offend people. It's just a natural part of the process till your brain starts snapping to it and doesn't need to think when talking to, becoming instinctual. The anxiety I was describing was if you are doing the same thing you always do, meeting the same types of people, and you are getting anxious. Here, you are in completely new situations where the old instincts aren't sufficient, like being in a new country where English wont cut it.

You just have to think twice as hard till it becomes natural. After some time, you don't even realize that it comes naturally to you.

This ties right back to your other thread: you are doing things for yourself for the first time, figuring out who you are.

Augi: Yes, it's obvious to me too that it's all tied together, but there are certain things on this road that can be piecemealed out to think and reason about. It's funny that really, in many ways I feel more in my comfort zone and happier than I have for many moons. I think I have felt more alive in the last 5.5 months than in the last 7-10 years. We'll see if it lasts. I'm hopeful, but skeptical.

An interesting thing I've experienced over and over again is a feeling of disbelief in what people will really do and how they really think. What I may have thought of as fictional or humorous because people wouldn't really do or think that way in real life (not in this century!) proves to be true. We're a funny bunch. I realize now that no matter how incredibly stupid, cruel, or fictionalish, if it can be thought of it's probably been done by someone. It's a letting go of naivete. It is freeing in a way, kind of life affirming, and it makes me laugh and feel a part of the world. On the other hand, I wonder about becoming too cynical. I like thinking that man is basically good.