Encouraging Creative Thoughts

A nonrandom environmental variable (ranchers that shoot rattlesnakes) is changing the population of rattlesnakes in the American Southwest, making the population more resistant to ranchers. Why? Because the ones that rattle less are surviving and reproducing in large numbers.

Now in anecdotal terms, outside the theory of evolution, cowboys and ranchers are telling stories of rattlesnakes that are learning not to rattle as much. The reason being, every time a rancher walks past a rattlesnake, it’s instinct is to stick it’s tail out and start hissing and rattling to scare away predators in the wild. What the rattlesnakes don’t know, is that they are dealing with ranchers. Ranchers end up killing the rattlesnakes almost instantly because they cause sickness among the livestock eventually killing them off.

As an aside, in evolutionary terms, this can be explained pretty easily. Basically, there are some rattlesnakes that rattle more than others, meaning there are also a set of rattlesnakes that have a higher sensory threshold, causing them to rattle less. They need more of  a stimulus to alarm the senses to start rattling. So, because of ranchers’ practice of almost always killing rattlesnakes when they do rattle, the ‘rattlesnake ninjas’ (as I like to call them) that don’t rattle as much are escaping, surviving, and then reproducing. They are becoming the dominant population over a span of years. This is essentially how natural selection works.

I like to call them Rattlesnake Ninjas because they are able to stay quiet (based upon their genome) when ranchers walk within feet of them, allowing them to survive and live long lives.

When it comes to following your dreams, you want to be like a Rattlesnake Ninja. You can’t get defensive every time someone botches your dream. I’m an english major, and I often get sneers, jerks of disapproval, slight nods of negativity, and the infamous “oh, what do you plan to do with that” (emphasis on the “do,” as if my degree is obsolete and I won’t be able to do anything at all. That I’ll be lucky to get a job in just about anything).

It hurts. Well, it used to, anyways. And, it’s because I was rattling like the rattlesnake that rattles way too often (tongue twister?). I would chime off and start getting nervous and put my defensive shields up. “What do you mean, what am I going to do? I can do plenty of things! Publishing, err, I might want to be a teacher somewhere down the road… maybe something in business,” I would retort back. My demeanor was a sloppy, last cry of hope, just like the over-zealous rattlesnake.

Like the Rattlesnake Ninja, I stopped rattling so much when someone asked me about school. I would tell them exactly what I wanted to do and how my degree could help me do that. “English majors learn how to think critically and creatively, something that business majors aren’t so focused on all the time. I’m aiming to work for a startup, where I might be able to apply the problem-solving skills I learned in my creative writing classes.”

It’s not always that clean-cut or clear, but my confidence is there, and, most importantly I’m not rattling anymore. I’m just telling the truth. I know what I’m doing and this is what it is. There are no defense mechanisms or buttressed walls or a castle moat. Just what I’ve worked through in my head about what I want to do with my life.

So, I guess the lesson isn’t really that you shouln’t be completely quiet all the time, nor should you ‘rattle’ off a bunch of murmurs and “errrs” and incomplete thoughts. Learn from the Rattlesnake Ninja–if a rancher walks 5 feet away, it won’t rattle, but when stomped on, the Rattlesnake Ninja rattles, and does so eloquently. And that’s the point! You need to pick your battles and use your rattles sparingly, but when you do, make them count.

Now, I pass it to you: What do you think as an entrepreneur, a reader, a college student, an employee? Are you a rattlesnake ninja already? Do you even care about rattlesnakes? These are heart-pulsing questions that need to be addressed!

As always, thanks for reading. If you made it this far, you really are a loyal reader

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* Rattlesnake facts from Biological Anthropology class and this article

* Post image from Charles & Clint

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