What Not to Do in a Disaster
Posted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 12:11 pm
Of course we are to rely on God. He also gave us a brain to use.article
I don't recall having read this article back when it was put up here, now almost 5 years back. It reminds me of the first time I was in the jungle (on the first trip out to the Banawa village, to build the airstrip). It was a Sunday, and since we didn't work Sundays, I had taken a nap after breakfast. But when I woke up, I thought it was the afternoon, that we had already had lunch. (Which is not so difficult to get confused about when you might have peccary meat for 4 meals straight.) I went out for a walk, going first down to the river, then working my way along the far side of the crisscrossed mess of fallen trees that would eventually become the airstrip, then crossed what would later be the approach. I had in mind to make a large circle, and end up back behind the Indian house where we were staying. I went some ways, then started taking each trail that branched off to the left. (I was going counter-clockwise.) Only some trails were pretty old, and hadn't been traveled much recently, and I was not at all a "woodsman" (having grown up on the prairies). I followed one trail until it ended at a rubber tree. I turned back, to find where I had come onto that trail, but I didn't find it, and instead, ended up at another dead end, at another rubber tree. I went back and forth between those two trees, but could not find the trail I had come from. So, I started off in the direction I thought I needed to go. (Now, I have a terrible sense of direction, even where I grew up, so this was risky. But what could I do?) After a bit of clawing my way through brush & briers, I came to a sandy creek. I was hot & sweaty, so I undressed and took a "bath". (No soap, of course, but it sure did feel good.) Then I continued on, and although it was so long ago now that I'm not sure anymore, I think I stopped at a second creek for another dip later on. (This happened in 1986.) Eventually I came to a "rocado" - a slash & burn field, and then I found a more recently traveled path, and eventually came out again on the airstrip site. (Since I had left the village some time between breakfast & lunch time, they probably soon missed me, when I wasn't there for lunch. It was around 2:00 in the afternoon when I got back - probably after 3 to 4 hours walking.)
I tell this because this article talks about the common response of just going on as though nothing happened in very dangerous situations - where some people will just freeze in place. I had thought later that "Now I know that I don't panic in dangerous situations", like I've heard about hunters lost in the woods, who will just charge right past another person, as though they don't even see them at all (when they should really stop and ask for directions).
So, was my response still an irrational one?