Instinct

Sometimes I know things and I don't know why.

I can walk into a room and get an instant sense of the social dynamic and what is happening under the surface.

I can see a person around, and without ever talking to them, have an eerie awareness of who they are and what they are going through.

I can be friends with a person who seems to be genuinely happy, friendly, and sweet, but find it hard to look them in the eye when we talk, because I can't shake the feeling that they are actually not happy, not doing well; that there is a part of their heart that they have done their best to bury and leave for dead, but I can still feel it beating, like the tremors of a distant earthquake beneath my feet.

I always try to take such instincts with a grain of salt. There is often little to no concrete data to back them up, and I want to be careful not to make unfair assumptions about people or situations. So I wait, and keep those observations on file in my head.

Sometimes the only outward sign of my instincts comes in the form of decisions I make - decisions that may look odd or incomprehensible to other people, but to me, they make sense, because they jive with my gut feelings. I acknowledge my gut by making room for its observations in the realm of my lifestyle choices. That way, if the landmine I am sensing is real, if it blows, I am out of the way.

Yeah, I do my best not to rely too much on random instincts that come to me out of nowhere. But you know, it's getting increasingly harder to just ignore them point blank, because now I  have the benefit of hindsight on a lot of these experiences.

And so far, more or less, my instincts have been spot on.