I know my instinct was to turn that gourd above into a hand-carved object of terror.

See? My instincts were correct! It could not have been any other way!

I haven’t done a writing prompt in ages, but figured that today might be a good day to tackle one; I’m ultra-busy with other tasks, but I feel it’s a solid move to keep posting here as often as I have time to do so. I also decided to spontaneously film another video of myself walking and talking, with the briefest flash(es) of myself on camera because I think I need to get used to that…except this time, I’m actually slowed-down and speaking like my normal self instead of being the human equivalent of a Japanese bullet train. I’m exactly a month away from the beginning of a new beginning, and something about this morning felt as thought it needed to be filmed and documented. So I made sure it was.

Was that instinct?

The more I think about this, the more fuzzy it becomes to me: how do I know if I am acting upon instinct, or intuition? As I briefly mention in my video (and I am no YouTuber, I’m just adding some slapdash audio/visual to this blog, because why not?), instinct is primal, animalistic, something that you sense without thinking about it. Intuition is–I think–developed from the accumulation of life experience and one’s reflection on it, from cognitive development, from analysis and awareness and a comprehension of those qualities. Instinct, then, is what I feel without thinking about it.

Do I trust my instincts? Not necessarily. Sometimes, I suppose. I am constantly aware if a guy is walking behind me, or staring at me, or making me feel as though I am in potential peril: this is the life of a woman, and I act upon those instincts accordingly (let the guy pass, glare menacingly back at him, pop into a nearby building, switch seats on public transit).

Does paying attention to soaring, flapping red flags in the form of poisonous / flaky / dangerous people or situations count as instinct? You know what I mean: if you get that feeling in your gut that something isn’t right, that you need to not get involved in that predicament, is this instinct, or intuition?

If the person you’re with says or does something unseemly or repugnant, causing you to recoil, and the only sensation you have is to remove yourself from them, this must surely be instinct, right?

It’s confusing. I’ve never thought about it before. I suppose instinct means acting without giving your actions actual consideration or conscious measure. I’m trying to come up with some examples: I see a fifty-dollar bill on the sidewalk (this actually happened once, and it was splendid). Without giving it too much thought, I scoop it up. Is that instinct?

I’m sitting beside a boy (a man? Shucks, I call them all boys) and I’m attracted to him, so I go in with a smooch because I can’t help myself. Is that instinct?

I’m hungry and losing my temper and overall will to live–hangry, they call it–but the notion of having a delicious, carbohydrate-heavy bowl of pasta doesn’t even cross my mind; instead, I blanch a head of spinach, squeeze out the water, and make sesame gomae sauce to dump onto it because decades of eating this has proven that the phytonutrients and fatty acids will balance out my mood. Is that instinct?

I’m losing it here. I can’t stay on top of what instinct is, because I’ve never pondered this topic for even a moment. I think I’ll have to read what others say about it. In the meantime, today–the first day of the very last month of my fourth decade on earth; that is, I’ve got exactly one more month until I shed my 40s–I decided to film a portion of my usual morning walk after checking in on the topic of today’s writing prompt. Again I ask, as I did somewhere above: was pressing “record” on my phone and talking to myself for twenty minutes instinct? Was refusing to do so along my sacred, precious Seawall (because I did not want to sully the Seawall experience for myself or others) instinct, or common sense? Was impulsively cleaning out my desk at home the other night–throwing away ancient papers and dried-out pens and unused flash drives after nearly ten years of letting this debris accumulate–in order to make my work space more inviting and tidy considered instinct, or a conscious decision? When I had to purchase another set of wireless ear buds the other day because I had, infuriatingly, lost the left bud of my previous pair while walking in rainy darkness, and out of all the limited colours available, I automatically grabbed for the blue because it’s my favourite colour, was that instinct, or personal preference?

Man, I don’t like this question. It’s scrambling me. I need another cup of coffee. Here’s to the end of a very difficult era, one that led me to the most peaceful point of my entire life. Instinctively, I know that the next ten years are going to have made all of the previous struggle worth it.

…I still don’t think I used that correctly.