Before going into the biunivocal subject of instinct-walking, let us answer the following 3 questions: What is an instinct? What are the instincts that human beings have? How are instincts classified?
Instinct is an inborn behavior in the human being and therefore its origin is not the result of learning over time; that is to say, instinctive behavior is not a response to reasoning or reflection, even different from intuition, which is also a human function that is far from will and reasoning. Instinct is the capacity that living beings have that empowers and drives them naturally to develop action in a spontaneous way without the intervention of reasoning, consciousness or will.
Let us see which are the human instincts, in order to know and be able to concentrate on those that have a direct relation with walking. To do so, we must consider a pertinent classification.
We would like to analyze the pros and cons of the different theories of instinct that have been formulated; however, we do not intend to highlight which of them is the most accurate or the most acceptable.
There are two positions that have been valid up to the present day, and which in themselves contain extreme representativeness: one of these perspectives demeans instinct by submitting it to reason, and the other considers that instinct manifests itself without ties, free with respect to reasoning and with an impermutable intrinsic value. Although we will not stop to elucidate the validity of one with respect to the other, we maintain that even if instinct is a degraded intelligence, our postulation of orienting ourselves to its strengthening and rescue as one of the healthiest ways for the human being to develop fully, in accordance with his pristine nature, would still be valid.
An exemplary classification is one that divides the instincts in basic and vital; considering all of them fundamental for the full development of the individual.
The basic instincts are:
1. Survival instinct.
2. Instinct of Reproduction and Perpetuation of the Species.
The vital instincts are:
– Preservation or conservation instinct.
– Instinct of personal, spiritual, scientific and artistic realization.
– Instinct of self-care.
– Instinct to flee and escape from danger, or to reject and repel aggression.
– Instinct of territoriality.
– Instinct of curiosity and inquiry.
– Sexual or Procreation instinct.
– Eros or life instinct.
– Thanatos or death instinct (aggression and anger).
– Instinct to leave the maternal womb.
– Instinct to leave the place of origin.
– Mythological-religious instinct (traditions and rites).
– Instinct of defense, protection, security and alertness.
– Instinct of submission and resistance to aggression and danger.
– Instinct of solitude
– Instinct of repulsion to the unknown
As can be observed, some of them are confused within others; however, I decided to mention them all to be more illustrative.
The human being is born with an instinctive programming, that is to say, he is born with all these instincts but some of them appear and are manifested since we are born, even from the maternal womb, but others are incorporated as we develop.
The instinct of procreation, although it is kept in the biological-cellular part, it appears until a certain age, when the reproductive organs -both of the woman and of the man- reach their maturity (the adequate age) to function as such. Territoriality, however, does not; it develops from the maternal womb.
I must point out that some classifications detract from their crucial and transcendental importance since they include the lower instincts.
Briefly, I would like to comment on the need that the human being has had to live in society, which has been confused with a natural impulse. We can affirm, in a summary way, that man is not a social being by his natural condition. Man is a sociable being by necessity. He is not inclined, by his natural condition, to meet with other beings of his own species, but is driven to socialize by external stimuli, to seek protection, greater strength within a group to defend himself, to seek food, to preserve the species. There is no such instinct in human beings that impels them to be social. It is a mistake to think that by its very essence, homo sapiens is a sociable being.
The instinct to leave the place of origin is gestated in two temporal phases; one is when the fetus leaves the womb, as an individual being, and the other phase is when it reaches a certain age in adolescence that manifests itself with the desire to leave the place where it has developed most of its early age.
I like to comment on the fetus in the womb because it is very explanatory of what happens to the human being when he needs to leave his place of origin. It is a second stage of the being that reaches its age -at 11-15 years old- and requires to be expelled from that second womb formed by parents, relatives, place, etc., to be able to reach that new vital environment and breathe by itself. I repeat what I mentioned in Post THE WALK AND THE INSTINCT TO LEAVE THE PLACE OF ORIGIN: “Going for a walk is not only a physical impulse to exercise the body and give movement to the mind, but it is closely related to something much deeper in the soul: going out to strengthen the individual personality. This going for a walk is a metaphor of the unconscious that seeks the healthy awakening of the personality of the being. Leaving one’s place of origin in a timely manner -at a certain age- allows one to develop better and to search for one’s own personality. Definitely this is an action that every human being -man and woman- must put into practice by himself, as his own decision and encouraged by his parents”.
“Leaving one’s place of origin in a timely manner -at a certain age- allows one to better develop oneself and seek a personality of one’s own. This is not a mere recommendation on my part, but this is a natural need of the human being to achieve his own personality and not to be frustrated, in his immediate future, for not making that exit with opportunity (Future Post THE WALKING AND THE INSTINCTS). However, to seek to obtain a re-integration of the personality that is lost by living comfortably within the family bosom, after a certain age: After having passed our youth, where the interference of the participation of the parental home -parents, family and educators- that have prevented a healthy development of the personality, is quite complicated from the psychic and behavioral point of view”.
“Of course, this departure should not take place before a certain age when the being cannot support himself; nor after a certain age, when the personality already suffers distortions, preventing its autonomous development, and the unconscious work that must be carried out by means of this departure (evasion, absence), is lacerating for the person who does not manage to do it in a timely manner”.
It is also possible that it is true that in both scenarios the human being has the desire to return, both to the mother’s womb and to the place of origin, but we cannot be sure of this. Good topic for someone to investigate and develop.
In several posts I have mentioned that it is only required to take the first step, placing oneself on the path, as the simple mechanism required to get excited and get rid of laziness. Some walking scholars mention this “taking the first step” in different contexts in order to point out and promote its benefits and “products”, and it is true in the vast majority of the topics discussed (undertaken). In our case, to be able to take the first step is to be able to detach ourselves from where we are rooted (rooted); rooting (rooting) that is established in the demerited state of mind of the being.
We explained this chronic rooting in that Post THE WALK AND THE INSTINCT TO LEAVE THE PLACE OF ORIGIN, and one of its manifestations is certainly that we do not feel like walking.
Walking is an indubitable (unquestionable, unquestionable, undeniable, irrefutable, incontrovertible) symbol of moving forward, of wishing to get somewhere, be it physical or sensory-sentimental (work, family, professional, social); and if we cannot leave our place of origin it is because we are afraid -among other denials of the personality- and we invalidate (and frustrate) one of the most important instincts of being.
On the other hand, the instinct of territoriality is not to stay in one place, but to look for that place outside of where we are rooted. A new place to look for our own particular development, physical, mental and spiritual. A plant or bush that is sad needs to be pulled out of the soil where it is planted and moved to a place where it can flourish. Likewise human beings, it is necessary, at a certain age, to uproot from his place, and take him to other places where he can develop all his capacities.
Walking also has this other “product”, in addition to the benefits that we have pointed out and described above.
Let us concentrate on those instincts that walking has direct effects on, such as the instinct of territoriality, the instinct to leave the place of origin, and the instinct to flee and escape in the face of aggression and danger.
All of them -the instincts- are cultivated, favored (encouraged), exercised, developed and preserved by walking, however, not walking also prevents them, represses them, restricts them, slows them down, prevents them from developing fully, and sometimes cuts them off, and the result in the future is to have a barren (sterile) being (Essay Peoples without Instinct *). As we have mentioned in the same Post THE WALK AND THE INSTINCT TO LEAVE THE PLACE OF ORIGIN, if this instinct to leave the place of origin is not attended to, the personality of the individual can become atrophied and it will be difficult to achieve a correct and satisfactorily finished (consummated) personality.
“Freedom, physical and mental, is born with the human being himself, it is inherent to him. Any action against it is reflected in a setback in the evolution of the species.
These involutions invade the different psychomotor spheres, which are impacted by subtracting from the human being physiological, psychic, emotional and instinctual aptitudes, both at the individual and collective levels.
It is not possible to distinguish with certainty in which of these spheres the impact of the loss of freedom is stronger, however, we must review the one where injuries can be provoked whose damage is not easily reversible, or that endangers the existence of the human being, by attacking his instinct of reproduction and survival as a people and as a species.
The sense of adaptation as an option for survival has been one of the ways that has shown the greatest damage to the human race; submission to dogma plays a determining role in the suppression of vital instincts, and thus in the prolongation of the status of servility and secular stagnation that peoples currently show” (Pueblos sin Instinto *).
WALKING AS AN EXPRESSION OF A HIGHER INSTINCT.
Now, I would like to argue certain ideas trying to support and validate that walking is a fundamental activity of the human being (Future Post WALKING, THE MOTOR OF THE REST OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES), a superior activity, it is a meta-activity. The prefix “meta” is to denote its status of “superiority” and “transcendence” that it has over other natural activities of the human being.
If we go back to the past, when hominids did not walk upright, we could ask ourselves about this “instinctive” walking.
Were they unable to develop that instinctive activity?
Did they stand upright to fully develop it and the rest of the instincts?
For a natural reason did they acquire that capacity and therefore they stood upright?
These questions open other avenues of research for the future, which I will try to answer in Future Post WALKING, THE MOTOR OF THE REST OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES. For now, in the here and now, let’s start walking to strengthen our instincts, both basic and vital.
(*) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Pueblos sin Instinto, EMULISA, México, 2022. (An English version will be published soon).