Fight or Flight
"This response is recognized as the first stage of the general adaptation syndrome that regulates stress responses among vertebrates and other organisms."
I have noticed that our rock doves ('pigeons') are more wary, having been under stress from the relentlessly disruptive, often dangerous and sometimes fatal changes in this City of the last decade. Further under threat of 'Netting' events where private profiteers swoop down on them periodically to make quick money by selling them for target practice, have resulted in hundreds disappearing overnight. The law against feeding them, and the spikes building owners have installed on sills and walls everywhere have made nourishment and roosting impossible. What we might observe as hyper-vigilance is a necessary response for survival.
I Never Heard a Sound, but First one flies off wildly...
Then many...
until only two bewildered youngsters were left.
Reptilian Brain
"The primitive, instinctive brain function
that is shared by all reptiles and mammals, including humans. It is the
most powerful and oldest of our coping brain functions since without it
we would not be alive."
~*~
I
too have become somewhat hyper-vigilant in response to these past weeks
of constant National and International traumatic assaults and, though I've selectively joined peaceful
protests and signed petitions, this weekend I've taken metaphorical flight.
Henry V
| Act 1, Prologue by William Shakespeare
"O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million; And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a thousand parts divide on man,And make imaginary puissance; Think when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, Admit me Chorus to this history; Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play."
LINKS
Readable Digital Issue-Village Voice
Henry V-History
Reptilian Brain
Fight or Flight
