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betrayal, break up, break ups, dating, decisions, divorce, intuition, logic, love, marriage, red pill, relating, relationships, spidey sense, subconcious, superstition
A recent event in my life affirmed something I have always believed but do not always follow — that we all have a gut instinct (or spidey sense) that if listened to, can help steer us in the right direction and away from situations and people that aren’t good for us.
Our current culture values science, logic, fact, and proof over things like intuition. These days, a gut instinct is dismissed as something akin to superstition, horoscopes, or listening to palm readers.
But I would argue it is anything but. It is a very primitive but ancient defense mechanism, a way to avoid danger in a dangerous world. It happens somewhere is the subconscious mind, or the brain stem and because of this people want to believe “higher reasoning” is better. But is it?
Like I said a recent situation had me examining the result of not heeding my spidey sense enough. I had always thought that spidey sense came from an emotional place. But as I examined the choices I was making I realized the spidey sense was advocating for logic, my higher reasoning was advocating based on emotion. That was an “ah ha” moment for me.
The truth is our minds are always taking in huge amounts of data, but we are only consciously aware of a fraction of it because otherwise it would be overwhelming. And of course we often don’t get to see what would have happened otherwise, had we taken path A over B.
However I cannot recall a single instance in my life where listening to my spidey sense led me down a path that was not in my best interest and how many times ignoring it has.
One frequent commenter who is a soldier and has spent many a day on the front line in dangerous territory swears it’s all about the spidey sense. He is alive today because he listens to it. He’s so tuned into it, it doesn’t whisper, it screams.
Another commenter reported that spidey sense can be easily dismissed because it often surfaces long before the actual cause of it does. At the time, you don’t really understand what is “off” about a situation, you just sense that it is. The common reaction is to wait for conformation the spidey sense was right, however by that time it is often much more difficult to cope with the consequences of not heeding it earlier.
I for one and going to start to honor my spidey sense, and to keep a journal so I can see for myself if it is just hokey pokey or if indeed my life and decisions I am making are an improvement.
Do you believe in spidey sense? Can you think of a time you wish you had, or hadn’t listened to it? Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Notes From a Red Pill Girl 
One man that makes his living doing high-profile risk assesments talks a lot about one’s “gut” and why you should trust it:
http://www.amazon.com/Other-Survival-Signals-Protect-Violence/dp/0440508835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426979613&sr=8-1&keywords=the+gift+of+fear
This is a good read and I highly recommend it.
^ Excellent read, that. As is the author’s other book (the one that I know of, at least) called “Fear Less”.
I might suggest a different book on the subject – “Thinking, fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman. He thoroughly discusses the difference between intuitive thinking versus effortful, logical thinking – and how we tend to use the former most of the time, despite its susceptibility to systematic bias.
Basically, our “system 1” intuitive thinking works much quicker than our “system 2” of effortful thought. We might consider system 1 our spidey sense. It picks up on things that we aren’t even aware of. Our observations evoke emotional responses from us before we even know what they are. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we should always trust our instincts – again, they are prone to certain errors.
That sounds interesting too Jeremy, I will have to pick both of those up! I can see what you are saying, how perhaps past experience or culture or what not could cause one to misinterpret subtle cues, read it wrong. In the book “Tipping Point” by Malcom Gladwell there is a part where he talks to a researcher who studies body language and interpersonal dynamics on a frame by frame basis. It was amazing how much more is always being said/communicated than what we consciously perceive. I believe he also wrote a book on the topic of split second decision making, I have been meaning to read that one too.
I prefer the term “sixth sense”, but I’m also a skeptic, and I’m disappointed you didn’t actually give examples from your life where you think you used yours. Frankly, the fact that women are more emotional than men makes me doubt your claims. (Yeah, I know that’s really sexist, but you’re a red pill girl, right?)
In any case, the only situation where I commonly use my own sixth sense is when I eat food. I believe in nutritional balance, and I will never eat food purely for taste. It’s all about making my body strong, but the question is how to figure out what exactly my body needs. For instance, should I use butter or canola oil on a piece of toast? (One is saturated fat. The other is unsaturated, and I don’t want to get into the GMO controversy.) I try to imagine the food in my mind, and I get a feeling that one variation is more desirable than the other. It can sometimes change based on other food I might be eating that supplies complementary nutrients.
But, generally, I think emotions tend to cloud a person’s judgment and can cause him/her to make bad decisions. Emotions are how scam artists manipulate people. Emotions are how womanizing men date-rape — I mean “pick up” — women.
My term for spidey sense is male intuition. Living in and travelling through bad neighborhoods as I have, it also becomes part of street smarts. You’re basically picking up at a subconscious level something that is unusual or out of place. That’s where usually the source of danger lies.
Some of the notorious places I’ve had to use it have been South Central LA, South Dallas, Boston, Belfast Ireland, Londonderry, and near the Berlin Wall. It’s also pretty good about spotting cheaters and flakes from potential dating partners, and has warned off potential ex-Mrs. Eccentrics.