What it means to be human

Various domesticated bird species usually run around the farm, including guinea fowl. We love our guinea fowl because they spend their days eating bugs: including ticks, flies, and other noxious pests. Guinea fowl are funny creatures, with colorful bald heads, speckled feathers, long legs, and oddly shaped bodies. We often view them as comic relief as they run around squawking and scurrying from here to there. They like to hang out under the horses, snapping up bugs that the horses disturb as they graze. Guinea fowl are a very primitive bird; they really aren’t very intelligent. Honestly, at times they seem to barely have two brain cells to rub together. Originating from Africa, they are not very domesticated. Guineas act on instinct and are often considered difficult to raise, due to flightiness and a complete lack of “good sense.” However, guineas eat bugs and ticks are at a rate that seems almost unimaginable. Our property is virtually devoid of ticks in the tall grasses. For those who are unclear what a guinea fowl looks like:

So, Jill, my wife, was thrilled when one of our guineas had her first clutch of eggs, and it was even more exciting when she hatched them out! She had raised this particular guinea hen from a young chick and felt “bonded” to her. Although she felt that way, as she discovered later, the hen did not feel kindly disposed towards her when she had her babies hatch. Furthermore, the act of leaning over the bird triggered a defensive reaction from the bird, as that is what predators do. Within the blink of an eye, Jill went from protector to predator.

The particular guinea had laid her eggs far away from food or water in an old barn. Being the good guardian, Jill put food and water in bowls and began to set them out for her. She felt that she “knew” this bird. Jill had raised, fed, and kept her safe at night. Certainly, the bird knew that. As the guinea had babies clustered around her body, she bent down to put the food bowl on the ground.

As Jill put the dishes down, seemingly out of nowhere, this hen flew directly at her face and clawed right down both sides of her cheeks with her talons, drawing deep scratches. With blood literally pouring down her face, she told me later that she felt like a stupid fool for taking liberties. If she were to think back on her relationship with this bird, it had never given her any reason to believe that it appreciated or understood her efforts on the bird’s behalf. Jill just assumed that her attentions and care for the bird were understood. Jill had “felt” like the bird clearly could “see” that Jill was trying to feed and care for the mother hen and her brood. In that instant, the guinea thought Jill was going after her offspring, and she reacted without hesitation.

Her maternal instinct was so quick and so fierce that at first, Jill didn’t even realize what had hit her. The human ability to feel empathy, to believe that what she feeling would be reciprocated, led her right down the path of assuming something that wasn’t.

This is a typical trap that we humans tend to fall into when working with other species. Patricia D. McDonnell , in her book, “The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs” (ref), gives the example of the little girl bending down to hug and kiss a dog. The child is doing just what baby humans do everywhere. She is hugging, kissing, and wanting to hold on to those close to her, just as her ancestors did in the past. She has the innate behavior of hugging and hanging on to her mother, because that is what human babies do.

But the dog feels very differently when hugged and kissed. Dogs are four-legged pack animals. They do not hug. When dogs are young, they do not hang on to their mother’s belly as she trots through the underbrush. The only time adult canines throw their bodies at each other’s heads is during periods of intense fighting.

When a little girl swings her arms around a dog’s neck and kisses him, the initial reaction of the untrained dog is to react defensively and bite. With all the best of intentions and instinct, this is a clear example of a human sending all the wrong signals to another species.

But why do we do what we do? The first step to understanding our own behavior is to accept both that we are different from other mammals and yet the same. When one goes to the zoo, or watches a nature program on non-human primates, it is a useful exercise to think: “I am related. I need to understand that creature, to better understand myself.” By taking that step, which is not always a pleasant step, a person can begin to understand what it is to be human and to be an animal. One must understand our relationship to other animals to truly understand the human condition. They are the building blocks that allowed us to become human. It is not something to be ashamed of but something to be understood and cherished. The commonalities will enable us to bridge the minds of other species (being careful not to take liberties, like Jill did with the guinea hen). But because we are humans, our reactions are often very different from those of other species.

How are we the same as other species? Sometimes it is just obvious. When I sit in the warm sun, I know that my dog can sit in the same sun and feel the same warm tingling on her skin. When I see my horse, laying in the pasture, with her body positioned to pick up the early morning rays, I don’t have to be up close to know how she feels as the warm sun penetrates her thick hide. Likewise, we can understand the pleasure of sex, of sleep, of eating, and of being warm that other mammalian and even avian creatures enjoy.

But do we think differently than other animals? And if so. How do we think differently? Most animals think in images, not words. We, too, can think in images, although sometimes we have to remember how. To think like an animal, we have to (re)connect to those animal parts of our brain. So some people, this is an easy exercise, for others, it can be challenging.

Do you think in words or images?

By trying to see images of our world through the eyes of an animal, we have to clear our brains of words. To think in images only. Thinking in images can be a calming and centering exercise to give ourselves when our over-analytic brain can’t turn off. To be able to create an image in our mind, whether it is of a special place, or a pleasurable past experience, is a gift from our animal mind. It is a trick often used in meditation to calm and relax the mind. Many a yoga class will involve an exercise of asking people to imagine themselves in a forest or field full of flowers, to bring them back to a mind without words, back to a place in the brain, where words are not needed.

Some say that animals don’t think about the future. I believe they do. So, here is a thought exercise to show how an animal might think about what is to come. Clear your mind. Then think about your next dinner or meal, picture yourself or someone preparing the meal. The next step is to view the table, with the food laid out ready to eat. See the textures, the dishes, the glasses, the food, and imagine (without words), eating that food. Taste it, feel it, smell it –but don’t cheat. No words. Let the images emerge, and explore that world. That is how I believe animals foresee the future. Words are not needed to envision what might come or what they wish to come. Likewise, they might envision even their darkest fears of the future. Using images, they can even think about changing the future. Is it a simple world, compared to our many words, syntax, grammar, descriptors, nouns, verbs, and complex sentence structures, but the point is that it does allow animals to strategize and think about the future. It just uses images instead of word strings.

Animals think in images because they are wired differently, and their brain centers are of different sizes and variations from our own. Thinking in images, for lack of a better term, as those images are probably being viewed in motion, is primarily associated with the right hemisphere of the brain.

There is are right and left hemispheres to mammalian brains. Scientists have concluded that the left part of the human brain has the logic centers; it is rational, logical, and analyzes the world in parts. The left brain is where most of our language processing occurs. Our right brain is the hemisphere that controls images, creativity, and sees the world as a whole.

Overall, animals use both hemispheres, but the side they use more depends on the context: the left for familiar, routine, and logical tasks, and the right for novel, emotional, or stressful situations. The right hemisphere of the human brain is used more for functions involving creativity, spatial ability, artistic and musical skills, intuition, and the recognition of faces, places, and objects.

The right brain is considered by many to be the “animal brain”, and animals are often considered more right-brained. The left side of the brain allows for complex language and tool use. Those of us who are considered more right-brained may feel more connected to our animal heritage because, at some level, right-brained people probably think in images more often or more clearly, just like their animal counterparts. Interestingly, across cultures, women tend to be more right-brained than men. However, modern neuroscience has shown that thinking about people as left or right-brained, as a strict division, is oversimplified.

It is thought that thinking in the right brain can also lead to heightened “anxious arousal” (intense fear, panic or both). A study conducted in 2007, used MRI during an emotional task to demonstrate distinct neural patterns: anxious apprehension (e.g., worry) correlated with left-hemisphere dominance, while anxious arousal (e.g., panic) showed right-hemisphere activation (right inferior temporal area (ref).

When working with prey animals, such as horses, the link to our right brain will often be the key to understanding their psychological states. One must remember how their brain is constructed to understand their world better. They are prey animals; they think in images and have a patina of instincts that direct their thought patterns to be ready for flight in an instant. One must get the horse to be calm, to quiet the right brain centers. Only then can one connect with their left brain to train effectively.

But how else are humans different from their animal counterparts? Many scientists believe that what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal species is not our ability to use tools, communicate with language, or think logically, but rather our large brain size combined with the complex foldings of the human brain to create more room for neurons. There is a simple allometric equation used to determine the slope between brain size and body size. The higher the slope, the larger the brain compared to body size. I believe the human species is different from other species because we are smart; we simply have a larger brain and more brain power. This is a big part of what it means to be a human.

What does it mean to be an animal? From our limited perspective as human beings, are we qualified to answer that question? I believe that we are. Each species has a unique footprint, a specific collection of qualities that sets it apart from all other species. There is no one species called animal. Each species has similarities and differences from the rest of the animal kingdom.

We all share certain similarities in being mammals, even in being alive. We all eat, sleep, defecate, procreate, communicate, have internal heating and cooling systems, fur or hair, and transport ourselves on various configurations of arms and legs. But the differences in how we go about feeding, sleeping, socializing, procreating, and heating are vast. For instance, I know little about how a lioness understands when her newborn babies are hungry or cold. Nor do I know about how a rhinoceros initiates a sexual advance.

As a human species, we have convinced ourselves that our superior brain power can allow us to communicate not just with other humans but with other species as well, and that we can analyze another species’ behavior and draw conclusions. Often, this is true. But sometimes, the very act of being a human directly interferes with our ability to communicate with other animals effectively.

Jill should have known, logically, that her bending over the guinea fowl might set the bird into attack mode. She had not analyzed her behavior as she bent over the bird to put down the feed; she was acting like a predator. But she didn’t make that leap of logic at the time. Instead, she viewed the little bird through her own human eyes and soul –the heart of an empath, and what she was doing was what humans do. Wanting to be close, to reach out. A lesson learned the hard way.

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