The paradox of studying what you are supposed to inherently know

[professionaljaywlker]

G. californianus is widely present in mexico and the south of the USA. Today, one of our teacher spoke of his experiences in mexico, specifically in a region where Peyote, a hallucinogenic cacti, grows and is cultivated/used by the Huichol, a native group. 

Some of the descriptions absolutely thrilled me, other less. I knew roadrunners coexisted with zones where cold and snow could be a thing, but it always somewhat bothers me. I suppose that if i had a past life, it was not in one of these zones. I fare much better with warmer winters. It's always interesting, when in my studies, someone mention my specie. It's a strange little secret and i'm always afraid of being almost... arrogant, in seeing myself as an animal while studying them. I see my nature as psychological, a strange neurotype i developed. How could i claim to know enough through my own personal madness to see myself as an animal? Each things i get wrong when talking about my theriotype feels frustrating, because i should know better. I suppose it's just something to let go off, i dislike seeing my therianthropy as mimicry, as much as i find it unrealistic there's something so comforting about the idea of a truth, a spiritual you that you can claim thoroughly. 

It's why i can't fully decide between spiritual and psychological, I think. Just can't let go of the possibility i was more right than i even claim, even when faced with the fractures in the facade.
 

The chihuahuan desert, one of the places i feel most connected to.
 

Comments

[citrakayah]

I've worried about similar things--it was less fear of arrogance, and more that therianthropy would bias me if I was studying my own species. I'd come to the wrong conclusions based off what I thought about myself or assume I knew more than I did. Apparently a lot of therians who work in zoology worry about the same thing.

But none of us are exactly the same--that's true no matter how we ended up like this. Objective spiritual truth or psychological mimicry, doesn't everything that's us blend together to some extent and make perfect knowledge about what bits of us are therianthropy-related and which ones aren't impossible?

[professionaljaywlker]

Honestly the arrogance somewhat does refer to this bias, it's what i was trying to express when saying I wanted to inherently know things that I did, in fact, not know. But yeah, the nature of therianthropy is that a bit of human and human culture mixes in with the rest ahah.