It is always neat to see my cat kneading a place to lay down. It looks like he is kneading dough. This is a common action of cats, it is ingrained in their DNA. Similarly, some other animals do things naturally. Consider birds that fly south during the winter or salmon who swim several thousand miles back to their places of birth to spawn. Even relatively small-brained insects pass on memory -- think of the Monarch butterflies who migrate back to Michoacan, Mexico; Florida; and Southern California in the cold months. We humans do not tend to have as much natural tendencies. Where some mammals are up in walking the same day they are born, humans sometimes take more than a year to learn to walk. Yet, our big brains do develop and we learn speech and other skills. Our brains have allowed us to make up for lack of fur, claws, fangs, and speed to develop clothing, weapons and forks and knives, and vehicles. Our brainpower has allowed us to domesticate other animals to serve us -- except in the case of my cat, who is convinced that I exist to do his bidding.
Our big brains do not work unless we exercise them. We must use it in conjunction with our ears and listen. We must use it with our fingers and take notes. We must use it with our eyes and read. We must use it with our mouths to ask questions to clear up misunderstandings. Lastly, we must engage our brain and exercise judgement. Among other things, this allows us to survive in the elements where our furless bodies are ill equipped.
We are in the season of winter camping. This is the time where unpreparedness can have disastrous consequences. We have wisdom of thousands of years of humankind passed down and distilled into a packing list, yet this does us no good if we do not read it and/or exercise proper judgement to follow it. With that big brain, let us use judgement so we can Be Prepared.
I will keep myself mentally strong.