This is an awesome question, and reminds me of a story I read yet I cannot seem to remember the source.
A man is walking in the jungle and suddenly realizes that he is being pursued by a tiger. He instinctually begins to run. He runs very hard, while the tiger remains close behind him. He suddenly finds himself on the edge of a cliff, with a raging river below him. He looks back at the tiger, then looks down at the raging river. Realizing that he has no choice, the man jumps. On the way down, he sees a root protruding out from the ledge. He grabs onto it, and it stops his fall. Then suddenly he sees a most sumptuous ripe, red, strawberry growing beside the root. As he hangs there, the tiger peers over the edge at him, and the river flows over jagged rocks below. The man reaches over with one hand, plucks the ripe strawberry, and bites into it....
Shay
Shay,
I am re-reading your story again about the man and the tiger. I think the morale of this story is to trust your gut feelings and something great might be waiting for you without you realizing it at first. Do you think the man jumped because of his intuition or his "fight or flight"? I think the problem here is that we (or I) interchange the word "instinct" and "intuition" too much. The dictionary makes the case here. However, I am talking about "laymen" terms and how we use the words instinct, intuition or gut feelings loosly.
Cara