A Final Thought: Chasing Tennis Balls

Everyone knows that animals have instincts. Birds build nests, beavers construct dams, spiders spin webs, sea turtles migrate thousands of miles across the ocean to their original nesting grounds.

And dogs chase tennis balls.



Their mamas don’t teach them these things. Instead, their skills develop from a complex combination of genetic information and environmental influences.

We like to believe that humans are above all this, that only animals have instincts, while we must learn our life skills after birth.

But we do have instincts, and well beyond babies suckling. There’s closing our eyes when something suddenly approaches our faces; our intense fight-or-flight response when faced with a threat; our tendency to prioritize the lives of our kin (our own DNA) over those of strangers; our desire to help a crying infant; our nervousness around creepy crawly things; our fear of the dark.

These days, being afraid of the dark might seem irrational, but our instincts aren’t new. They’ve been developing within us for eons. Not long ago, the dark was associated with danger. If you wandered away from the tribal fire, a critter could eat you. In Europe, that was likely a wolf, and in other parts of the world, a lion, tiger or bear, oh, my.

In the dark, you might also step in a hole and break your ankle, a much bigger problem thousands of years ago than it is today, especially in nomadic cultures where if you couldn’t walk fast enough, you’d be left behind. And depending on your cultural myths, you might walk off the edge of the earth or come face to face with a yeti, troll, pixie, werewolf, vampire or banshee.

Humans also have an innate fear of abandonment. Being left alone meant being devoured by said creatures or captured and sacrificed by an enemy tribe. Becoming an orphan meant losing protective caregivers (particularly the nurturing feminine) and increased the danger of falling into the hands of an evil stepmother, a wicked witch or some brutal masculine power.

All these characters are what psychiatrist Carl Jung called “archetypes,” and they’re so deeply ingrained in our psyche that they resonate with us strongly in our myths, fairy tales, stories and movies.

Many of our favorite heroes are orphans—Dorothy Gale, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, Jane Eyre, Anne of Green Gables, Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden, Cinderella, and of course, Superman and Batman—each fighting some kind of evil and often guided by a supernatural mentor like Glinda the Good Witch of the North, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Fairy Godmother, and way too many to count in the case of Harry Potter.

The fundamental instinctive code for humans is clear: Never, ever be left alone.

As a result, just as beavers build dams, humans have a strong innate urge to form social networks. Not having a family, group or tribe to support us (and help us find self-worth by supporting them in return) poses danger to both body and spirit. Dark forces, real or imagined, must be out there, so we are driven to bond with groups for safety. The greater the threat, the tighter the bond. 

But beware: Instincts are so powerful that they can be satisfied outside of reality. My dog uses her nose to push imaginary dirt over a chew stick to “bury it,” and she digs a hole in imaginary dirt on my sofa before settling in for a nap. She runs after tennis balls because it triggers her innate drive to chase, catch and retrieve prey.

None of it’s real, yet she is satisfied anyway.

Humans are no different. We form bonds with imaginary groups on the TV shows we binge watch, most of which feature families, friends or coworkers we can vicariously join in with. My father called our television “the peephole into paradise” because it let us connect with people and experience a happy ending every 30-60 minutes.

And today, as we constantly stare at our small screens, we’re actually socially bonding, even though there is no one else in the room. More than 5.66 billion people use social media (two-thirds of the global population) because our emotional needs are so great and the technology is so easy. 

Now, we’re beginning to develop emotionally strong connections with AI characters, including friendships and romantic relationships. This trend is driven by the availability of chatbots designed to always be agreeable and personalized, leading to deep emotional connections, especially among young adults.

If you could teach a beaver to fulfill its innate desire to build a dam by doing so inside a video game, would it ever go back into the water? And when we pursue love and friendship online, does it really matter if we’re just chasing tennis balls?

Mitch@MimiVanderhaven.com