ClownFighter

The study released last month presented babies with a diorama-like display of an anthropomorphic circle struggling to make it up a hill. Just when it appeared that all hope was lost, a heroic triangle appeared, and pushed the circle to the top. The round climber bounces, clearly elated to have reached the summit. The same scenario is played out again, only this time a square appears at the top of the hill and pushes the circle to the bottom.The babies were then asked to pick a toy – the helper or the hinderer, as scientists called them. One hundred percent of 6-month-olds and 87.5 percent of 10-month-olds chose the helper. The results were consistent even when the triangle and the square swapped places as good guy and bad guy. In several other iterations of the experiment, the helper, regardless of shape or color, won out.“Babies are very competent socially,” says Kiley Hamlin, lead author of the study. “They can figure this kind of stuff out without people explicitly teaching what’s nice and not nice and who’s nice and who’s not nice.”In another component of the study, researchers showed the circle choosing to sit with the helper or the hinderer. In this instance they found that 10-month-old babies were far more adept at noticing something seemed strange when the circle decided to sit with the hinderer. (They figured this out by how long the baby watched the helper or hinderer pair up with the circle, working under the assumption that babies, like adults, study something that appears out of the ordinary.)Need I say more?    Look at the numbers, 100% of babies 6 months, 87.5% of babies 10 months!  While we have no idea as to how large the data pool, let’s just assume it was enough to be statistically relevant.

 First of all, as we age (6 months to 10 months) our innate innocence seems to wane.   I know that the younger I was the more rose colored my glasses were, but over the years, I’ve grown more distrustful and at times,  more out for myself.   

Altruism seems so hard to deliver in this world in which we live as we surround ourselves with a population that has grown more and more selfish.   Yes, people get on the green bandwagon, but that starts one person at a time.    The very people driving the Prius has a Hummer and Escalade at home and flies his or her Gulfstream coast to coast rather than fly commercial.   I’m not a scientist, but I would guess that it would take 10 to 20 years of driving that very Prius to make up for the damage that Gulfstream causes going just one way!

 I love the story above because it shows that we are born innocent, and all have a chance to retain our innocence.  A baby of any species is drawn to good.   Just look at a pet store or an animal shelter.   Put a good natured person, with a kind heart next to a real bastard,  and I would bet that the puppies would surround the former.

 So what am I a trying to say?????  I really don’t know, but what if we all tried to be that Good Samaritan?    How about this?   My idea is to have companies offer a certain number of days (between 2 and 5) per year, where their employees would be able to volunteer in their communities and still get paid.  No vacation or sick days used, but volunteer days… let’s call them Good Samaritan Days or even Pull Your Head Out of Your Ass Days!

 You could feed the homeless, pick up trash on the beach, clean up shit at the shelter, walk around Skid Row and give each person a buck as well as information as to how they could get a health exam, etc.   There are endless possibilities and if companies started doing this, could you imagine the positive energy that would be created in the various communities and world as a whole?  

 Just some food for thought on this Wednesday 13 days from Christmas.

 Remember to keep it real……Clown Fighter