Are you ever surprised by how you behave when you meet new people or enter a room with strangers. I can predict how I will behave when I meet my buddies from the Marine core or the elderly neighbor from across the street, but sometimes I open a door and surprise myself by my behavior.

A lone house, when I turn the corner

the chimney smokes, a sign of life

is it a stranger that I will meet?

or will it be me?

This is the poem that spoke to me today, it is from Day 1010.

I think that most animals that are higher on the evolutionary ladder, and display a more complicated social behavior, feel unconsciously what the structure of a new group is. With structure I mean simply: who “plays” what role. You have the alpha’s, the followers, the thinkers, the silent ones and so forth. Most groups consist of these different kind of characters. The nice thing is that someone who is silent in one group can be the alpha in an other group, your role can change depending on the group you are in.

I once did Kendo, I was a beginner and when I was in a group of more experienced players I new my place and was silent and listened. Then I moved to a tiny place in Norway where no one ever heard of Kendo. So when I taught it there I was the alpha and people listened to me.

This is what I meant in the beginning, and with the poem. We all have our place in the group, it can change within the group and if you go to another group you have to see and find out what you role is.

And when are you ever yourself, you might ask? I think your always yourself, no matter what role you play in the group. There are off course times that you or someone else forces a role upon the group, thinking that you are that “role”. Most people don’t like that kind of disharmony, a group with to many alpha’s or silent ones will dissolve eventually.