Pecking Orders
“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”
“It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.”
“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and the unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.” - Bertrand Russell
The relationship between time and experience always baffles me. It’s only been a bit more than a month since I wrote last, but what a does that mean? How much time can one month hold?
I guess Einstein would tell you that it’s all relative.
I feel here are those moments that contain infinities in them.
The moments that seem to either blow open new possibilities or create craters in the mind so deep that it takes a lifetime to crawl back out.
If you have the time, I would ask that you hold your breath for 35 seconds and imagine that you’re in an earthquake. You can hear screaming, but you can’t move. You can hear everything you own falling and smashing to bits. You can feel the foundation of your home crack open and the walls meant to protect you now become your tomb. You know no one is coming for you anytime soon.
Now imagine this continues not for 35 seconds, but for 35 days.
That’s how long Israel has been bombing Palestine.
I’m no expert in geopolitical relations and I will not burden you with my opinions here. All I want is to tell you a story about what happened with my flock of chickens this month.
Chickens are very territorial and have a very complicated pecking order. Disturbances can lead to stress, aggression, and death.
My flock now consists of 4 adult hens and 2 young hens or pullets.
I purchased the two young ones after I re-homed my two roosters. (They were a surprise and forbidden within city limits so off they went to the country.)
I kept the chicks separate from the big girls until they were old enough to hold their own as introducing them too young is risky.
I’ve raised all my older girls since they were a day old and there is nothing threatening about them in my eyes. They all have their own personalities and are often tender and affectionate with me and each other.
But as they grew, I noticed that transgressions in social norms would be met with displays of aggression. Bluebell, the smallest, would often be picked on by Poppy, the Jersey Giant, if she tried to eat before Poppy ate.
It’s hard to watch any of your babies bullying the others. There were a few times that I had to step in to prevent feathers being pulled out.
The same thing happened when the two new girls were introduced - despite having had exposure to each other from behind a fence, when I let the little ones loose, the big girls raised up their hackles and chased them. Juniper was the most unsettled.
June had started off as the youngest and smallest member of the flock, but has grown to be the largest hen I have in my flock. And she has grown to be a bit of menace to anyone who gets in her way.
I had to sepparate her from the other girls for a day and night. She seemed sad and stressed. She is still a social creature and being away from her sisters is hard for her.
I then picked her up and carried her around in my arms like a feathery football for about 40 minutes. I soothed her, I talked to her and pet her. She fell asleep in my arms. When I released her, she did not chase or attack anyone. She just started pecking and grazing with the others, albeit with a little distance between them.
She still pecks here and there and the little girls have not been allowed to spend the night in the big coop yet as they’re still growing, but I have noticed that with kind leadership and firm interventions, the flock is slowly becoming more accustomed to each other and we have seen fewer instances of violence and bickering as the month has gone on.
I’m still a firm believer in diplomacy as long as the diplomat has the right heart and understanding of her charges.
I love all my girls so instead of focusing on punishment, I have focused on structure and guidance. I make sure they all have their own food bowl and plenty of space to run around in case someone does get chased. And I monitor during free ranging as much as possible.
If I had denied their nature and pretended that everything would work itself out, there might have been blood spilt.
If I had punished them ruthlessly, I would have lost their trust and not mended anything within the flock. In fact, I might have stoked their aggression.
I wrestled with some complicated feelings while witnessing all this. Winnie would jump into my lap and hide from Juniper, cowering and shaking - refusing to leave my side. How could I keep in mind that Juniper, despite being Winnie’s tormentor, was still one of my girls. Juniper is often the first to come greet me and jump onto my shoulder to nuzzle.
It’s often hard to hold in your mind and heart these conflicting feelings of dissapointment, disgust/confusion, grief, and love. But we must learn to hold on to the complex. It’s when we start to give into the simple, the easy, the seeming clarity that rage and fear provide us, that we become monsters ourselves.
The books I read this month:
Never Split the Difference - On a rainy afternoon, I walked into The Paper Boat bookstore in West Seattle and asked for a few books. This was the first. It had been recommended to me by someone during a job interview. I ended up getting a different job, but the conversation I had with the owner and founder of Black Forest Mushrooms was fascinating and made for a very memorable interview. This book is not at all what I expected. I thought it would be a show of force and sneaky strategies used to manipulate people. I can’t tell you how many times Jack gave me a wary look when he saw me reading this. What I found is that former FBI hostage negotiator, Chris Voss is quite skilled at the art of listening and cultivating empathy. Turns out that if you want a terrorist to cooperate with you, you have to still treat him like a person.
To understand is not to condone.
And influencing is not the same as manipulation.
I very much enjoyed being absorbed in all the stories Voss shares and techniques he goes over.
The 48 Laws of Power - This is the second book I bought that rainy day. I don’t know what the clerk ringing me up must have thought.
I told her I promised that I wasn’t up to anything nefarious.The fact that I felt I needed to defend myself while purchasing this demonstrates the mistrust and fear that tends to surround this word. We all want to be powerful, but none of us want to admit we want power.
I had wanted to read this for a long time. Then I heard an interview with the author, Robert Greene, and I knew I couldn’t delay it anymore.
Greene wrote this book when he himself was pretty powerless and broke. He had experienced a lot in his many travels and jobs and wanted to write a book about power, not to necessarily create a how to guide, but to help other powerless people like him learn how to defend themselves from being taken advantage of.
He uses examples from history to demonstrate his maxims.
I’m not completely done with it yet, but have gotten a lot to think about.
