When I was young, maybe three, I remember getting stung by a bee.

We had this little red swing set in the back yard, which in my mind’s eye may as well have been built by giants.  I used to use the rod that propped up the “A” frame as a set of monkey bars, and while I remember it being huge, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of feet off the ground.  And so, as kids often do, I remember jumping up and grabbing hold without looking.

I don’t remember the pain of the stinger, but I do remember being scared.  I remember running inside, looking for the kind of comfort that only a mother can give.  The open arms, the big hug and even bigger smile, and the kind, soft whispers of reassurance as she whisked me up onto a chair and sprouted tweezers.  I can’t remember if I was angry at first, but maybe I was.  It was my swing set after all, and the bee had no right to be there.  What I remember most, though, is that she told me the bee would die.

I remember running outside to have a look at it.  I also remember it being squished against the frame where my hand had been.  It’s also one of the few times I ever remember crying.

It’s funny, you know?  As a kid, everything’s big and new; and there’s a great sense of wonder about the world.  There’s an air of innocence about it.  Lessons like mortality and the consequences of your actions aren’t learned cheap.  And those lessons are revisited, and reinforced, as the years tick by.  I can’t speak for anyone else, but that tends to solidify your understand of a thing.  And no, this isn’t a discussion about death, or mortality.  It’s just an observation about perception.

The problem with trial and error, cause and reaction, and certainty of proof is that you hug to it as you get older.  It’s not that the world has become any less innocent, or any less wondrous; it’s that my perception of it has changed.  And therein lies the danger, I think.  The danger isn’t in understanding something; no.  It’s that the next time around, you expect the same result.  The more proof you see of theory driven from practise, the more inclined you are to shrug off to the possibility of change.   And the less inclined you are to question it.

It’s a double-edge blade, no doubt; but perception, I think, is quintessential to the nature of possibility.  And perhaps, then, its worth tackling the challenges of tomorrow with my eyes open.

As far as the evolutionary ladder goes, we’re by-and-large a social pet.  Most of us enjoy the company of others, flock together for special occasions, and spend a large part of our lives grooming one another.  Throw a barbeque, or “mates night in”, for example, and the hunter-gatherer takes over, foraging to bring together a selection of tasty treats to be shared among the tribe.

Different people, however, enjoy different things.  I, for one, am not the socialite that my mates are.  I can go long periods without contact and catch up again on weeks, months, or even years at a time within a few sentences, with that familiar feeling that the conversation has simply picked up where it left off.  I don’t dine on the prospect of idle chatter; hugging it closely as if to struggle some nourishing morsel from the practise.

In that sense, after much drunken debate, it was determined that I am the savannah pride lion, or the gorilla.  Living out my days in the urban wilderness, piecemeal with my surroundings as I contemplate matters, being social for the love of my pack and mostly content to survey the borders of my dominion while grasping at the loose straws that bind the nature of the universe.  This much is probably true; and I think I took that in good stead.

So everyone else was, in my opinion, a hyena – bickering over tid-bits and morsels, circling their adversaries with cruel malice, and brandishing their pointy white teeth while baying their woes at the moon.  Sadly, lions and hyenas don’t seem to share the same sense of humour, and the finesse of that observation wasn’t as amusing as I, allegedly, seem to think it was.

Which animal are you?