Tag: woke

Every day, we hear people declare, ‘This is just second nature.’ For something to become second nature, there had to be practice and/or social influence to change what their first nature was. Does anyone remember what their first nature was, and can we peel back the veneer of our second to return to the first, if we wanted to?

We rarely talk about our First Nature. The nature we were blessed with in the beginning, before we were conditioned and formed life-altering habits. They are the innate, biological, pre-social capacities of curiosity, fear, empathy, attachment, and so on. First nature doesn’t hate; it differentiates. It notices patterns of familiarity, comfort, threat, and protection. It produces the capacity for bias, but it doesn’t develop an ideology of it.

Second Nature is learned, habituated, and socially enforced structures of behaviors and beliefs. When a reaction or attitude becomes second nature, it means it has been so deeply culturally engineered that it feels automatic—a reflex done without thinking. Second nature is encoding through stories, rituals, hierarchies, and reward systems. Hate and bigotry are not natural; they are second nature; they are a cultural metastasis of a cycle.

Fear triggers avoidance.

Avoidance promotes ignorance.

Ignorance fortifies fear.

Fear then justifies hate.

Run the loop long enough and hate feels ‘natural’—it is second nature and doesn’t feel like a negative response or reaction, it just merely is—because you’ve been socially corrupted and molded.

A thoughtful person in reflection must ask: Can it be reversed? The answer is a resounding yes. It can if we recognize the cycle. Instead of fear-triggering avoidance, what if it triggered natural curiosity? This shift in perspective opens up a world of possibilities for growth and change.

Fear triggers curiosity.

Curiosity promotes understanding.

Understanding fortifies commonality.

Commonality then justifies harmony.

This isn’t sentimental. It’s disciplined work: notice the trigger, interrupt the habit, and retrain the response by consciously choosing a different reaction. The task isn’t to erase second nature but to realign it—so what feels automatic again serves what is authentic.

We are defined by what we love and what we detest, what we accept, what we tolerate, and what we reject. Each of us can rediscover our first nature characteristics. Because first nature doesn’t have a set of instructions, rediscovery isn’t about reprogramming yourself but about acknowledging that you are a product of your socio-economic environment. Take time to reflect and, honestly, aggressively self-assess. Self-deception is self-deprivation—denying yourself the truth denies you growth. But when you embrace self-reflection, you take control of your growth journey. Ask yourself if the second nature virtue you exhibit is really a tortured, misconfigured, misaligned first nature—like fear yielding to hate. Give yourself the latitude and patience to look deep, rediscover alternatives, and be open to the power of curiosity and understanding. #NeverFearTheDream