Olympians can't compete with the body's flight response

With the thrill of the Olympics still in our short-term memories, I wish to set some records straight. Usain Bolt, Jamaican sprinter, winner of three golds and three world records in the 100- and 200-meter sprint and 400-meter relay: snail's pace.

Michael Phelps, part man, part dolphin, winner of eight gold medals: dog paddle.

These gentlemen, in spite of their incredible achievements, cannot match the speed of human avoidance. Bolt, who likes to boast about being lightning, is a dead bolt compared to our dash from things that threaten us. Phelps is a flapping fish out of water when one looks at ordinary human beings escaping from stressful situations.

Avoidance is that great escape. It is part of the tactics of the biological battle of survival that living forms of all shapes and sizes stage to survive. Many learned in high school biology or psychology classes from the work of Walter Cannon, "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage." In 1929, Cannon first described the responses of "emotional excitement." He coined the name and gained the fame with "fight or flight."

Flight or fleeing is an effective way to stay alive, to a point. If there is a dark alley, don't go down it. Avoid it. If there are bad people around, turn around and run. If a person is scared to death of falling off a bike, life will continue on foot. The problem comes if avoiding is the only weapon a person has in the struggle of stress.

Sadly, some parents were taught by their parents who were taught by their parents to avoid as the principal method to handle stress. They teach avoidance when the stress generated by a sad child or a lonely child or a hungry child is ignored or deflected by an incompatible response. It is the often spoken phrase, "You're OK," when the child is truly suffering. So when the child grows up he or she avoids the problems just as the parents missed the distress. It is not that they don't care; they just don't know. They just don't get it.

Of course that can be said of a lot of humans and their organizational creations. For example, human-directed companies or governments don't have intrinsic intelligence other than that provided by their human leaders. These leaders have the same emotional and survival techniques as little children. Therefore, human institutions act as do their leaders and creators. They evade and fly away just like the rest of us. They also fight, but that is another article.

For example, this nation has a multitude of challenges that have been recognized for years, even decades. These problems are known to all and ignored by most: Social Security solvency, Medicare's out-of-control costs, immigration reform, addiction to oil, tax simplification, pollution and global warming, infrastructure decay, inner-city violence, drugs, homelessness, the health-care crisis.

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