Please Remain Calm

The theme of Chicken Little is panic and assumptions. As I ran around St Thomas in a chicken costume calling out “the sky is falling!” I couldn't help but think about how often in life panic and assumptions seem to be our first reaction to unpleasant situations. When bad things happen, and sometimes merely unpleasant things, we tend to start with the panic button or at the vary least we lead with an uncomfortable feeling that things are going to get worse.

We often assume the worst. If we have bad news we tend to expect even more bad news to follow, yet with good news, we tend not to expect more good news to follow, instead we wait with bated breath for the other shoe to drop and life to turn to, well you get the idea. Its not that chicken little claimed that the sky is falling, that caused all the trouble, upon hearing bad news the town panicked.

I have spoken before about our bodies ability to sense other peoples emotions, our bodies give off scents and our olfactory senses pick up on the subtle cues, and it spreads. The person next to you will start to chemically change, they will react to your panic, often with fight or flight. Panic, chemically speaking has the potential to spread like wildfire, it can be as infectious as the common cold. One bad apple can indeed spoil a bunch.

The spread of panic, in evolutionary terms, was once a survival skill, a call to arms for our primate selves. A tiger is in the distance: panic, run, pick up a sharpened stick, stones; do something. In the good old hairy days of humanity, panic made sense, but as we live in a safer world, together, with few tigers to threaten us we have little reason to panic. Yet, panic we do.

What I find fascinating about humanity is how being devoid of any real enemies, we create them in our entertainment, our values, cultures and the stories we create about each other and the uncertain future. Aliens, it seems, are certain to be galactic enemies. When there is no tiger in the distance, who do we remain vigilant for? Sadly, each other.

I am not suggesting that there is nothing to fear in one another, but what I am suggesting is that perhaps the reason we do fear one another is because we have no other enemies. If we were attacked by aliens, I think most people agree that all of humanity would band together against a common enemy. The question is, how long does it take to evolve past having a sensitive panic button?

In the end, Chicken Little learned that he panicked for nothing, the sky wasn't falling, it was just a piece of UFO that fell on his head. The aliens we're not out to destroy the Earth, they were just visiting, hoping to score some acorns along the way. Throughout my life I have learned that nine times out of ten there is no need to panic, everything is going to be alright, and often what we panic about are things that not only can you do nothing about it, but they often work themselves out in the end.

Don't panic, please remain calm, all will be well.

I'm No Chicken

I want to leave you with a few of my antics while dressed up as a chicken.
I tried to make a complaint at the police station when I informed them that the sky was falling, they only laughed at me.

Crossed the street and yelled out, “I don't even know why I am doing this!”
I yelled out “The sky is falling!” to just about everyone I saw. I ran through town hall telling everyone, they laughed, I don't know why they didn't take the 5'8” chicken seriously.

The best little moment was when I went into a local bulk store and asked them if they had a nice marinade that I could soak in. The woman smiled and said, “I know of a good beer one... except you have to shove the beer can up the chicken's butt.” to which I tightened my buttocks and politely declined.