I have always been sort of an amateur psychologist.  Dangerous I know! For me understanding people ranks right up there with my need to dissect why things happen the way they happen in nature.  In fact my own philosophy that we are indeed a part of nature rather than apart from nature makes those two needs rather logical.

I have read my share about the human psyche just as I have about the natural world.  It seems that most people in the fields of psychiatry and behavioral analysis say that we begin to form “who we are” in our infant years and have formed much or our persona by the time we have started school.  The personality that we will carry through our entire lives is then set by our mid to late teens.  This is a mixture of both genetics and environment. I have spent much of my life trying to prove all of this to be wrong.  I have made it a point to be an evolving person who grows with each and every day of life.  Still as I look back over that life it becomes clear that I am the same basic person I was when I was 16 years old.  For better or for worse. The same basic person.

There is no question that life serves up many curve balls to each of us.  A constant flow of negative and positive energy passes through our live’s.  By necessity we do change in our reaction to the waves that ripple though our personal space.  At least in my opinion.  Sometimes we set out to change our diets, or quit smoking or drinking.  In some instances we actually succeed.  I have been both a smoker and a drinker in my time and now I do neither.  Still the person that I was that led me to those habits really has not changed.  We have all read stories about a divorced couple who re-unites and re-marries.  Once in a while it works because their personal needs have changed.  Maybe as happenstance or maybe through effort.  Most however are doomed to fail a second time.  Or a third or a fourth.  It makes perfect sense when you accept that we have been the people we are today since we were teenagers.  We were just not destined to be with that personality type on a daily basis for life.  I do think you can like and even love someone that you are not able to live with.

My MO is that of a person who likes people but is not fond of crowds.  I love spending time with a few (or one) special persons but I still need a little personal space and time almost every day.  I enjoy attention and notoriety but I get embarrassed and may “head for the hills” if I receive more attention than I think I deserve.  In past years I enjoyed being (speaking) in front of a crowd but I always reached a point when I felt that my time up front had passed and I wanted it to end.  That is the point when I love being alone.  As a nature photographer on some occasions I absolutely treasure finding a crowd of photographers out in the field to talk and exchange stories with.  That is some of the time.  Mostly I would rather be out with one great friend or go it alone.  I do treasure the time I spend in nature by myself.  Saying that I am out there alone is actually incorrect because I am never alone when I am in the natural world.  All of these personal traits were pretty much true when I was in high school.  Back then I might go into a state of shock if I had to get up in front of a class and give a report.  Still I could joke and entertain the glass for the entire period.  I would enjoy the attention and the metaphoric applause. Then on to my next class where I would sit in silence for an hour.  I suppose this means that I can be self-conscious in front of others unless I am in control,  in which case I enjoy the attention.  At least for a while.  Whew!!  I sound complicated.  No wonder my marriage failed.  The point is that our younger years from birth to 18 or so are incredibly important.  It is when we become who we are.  For better or worse.

I have spent most of my life around animals.  Dogs and horses especially.  I have seen my share of puppies and foals come into the world and I do believe that they too are fully formed by the time they reach their version of being a teenager.  They certainly carry many traits passed on by their parents and I have seen without a doubt animals not only affected by their environment, but formed by it.  Yes you can teach an old dog or horse new tricks, but you will be teaching a critter with the same fears and the same personality that they possessed in their younger years.  All this has made me wonder about wildlife.  I have spent time with a variety of wild animals during their younger times.  Foxes, eagles, owls and smaller creatures.  Their parents pass along much of who they are, but experiences also affect wildlife.  Humans create many of those experiences.  Interaction with young wild animals will help decide what they will be like for their entire life.  At least that is what I beleive.  The best scenario for young wildlife is to have as little interaction with humans as possible.  If they see people as a food sorce when they are young they will not forget that.  Just like us, only extreme circumstances will force them to change who they are once they are fully formed adults.  I probably should have mentioned to those of you who have not read my work before, that I almost always draw comparisions between human existance and nature.  That is because while I do believe we are different, we are still a genuine part of the natural world.

I have a failed marriage and more failed relationships in my past than I care to remember.  I have failed friendships as well.  While I would love to think that I (and the other parties) have changed enough that we would able able to succeed where we previously failed, I have doubts.  At times some of our paths have crossed either in person or via the internet.  It is always easy to remember why I liked those people.  It soon becomes just as easy to remember why we could not be close.  They are great people that I treasure but only from a distance.  It is okay because it always makes me appreciate the great friends that have remained in my life.  It is clear that those friends and I were destined to be close.

It is normal for us (humans) to want to improve and become better people.  I do think we can do that as long we understand who we are, and that changing our basic personalities is not what it is about.

No matter the subject of my writings I always end with some nature photography.  No doubt their personalities were formed as teenagers!

Male Yellow-headed Blackbird

Western Painted Turtle