Zebras in a game park in Swaziland
I’ve been thinking, God, about social fears. It was discovering my fear of being different from the group — not eating grain — and so forth– that enabled me to lose some weight. Once the fear was in the open it seemed so small and silly. I thought the important thing was to find the hidden fears — uncover them — then they lost their power.
But then yesterday I happened to be telling a story that came from Robert Sopolsky’s book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. He teaches at Stanford and during the summers he studies baboons in Africa. One summer night he was sitting around a campfire chatting with other researchers. The zebra researchers were complaining about how hard it was to tell one zebra from another. So they came up with a great idea! They would put a blob of bright colored paint on the rump of one of the zebras — then they could easily follow him. They did it and the very next day they got up and looked for “their” zebra. Couldn’t spot that painted zebra anywhere. Then, just toward the end of the day they found the remains of a zebra — and there on the tail — the blob of paint. What terrible luck! But they did it again — and again found only the remains of their zebra. The zebra researchers never would tell just how many zebras they painted — before they realized that Lions also have a hard time telling one zebra from another.
Sigh. So, standing out from the crowd / herd makes you an easy mark for predators. I guess that is where the seemingly small social fears got wired in. Creatures without those fears didn’t leave as many descendants as the fearful. God, I think those fears are meant to “help” us. But they are MUCH more powerful than I want to realize.
Surely God, once we survive adolescence, those fears aren’t quite as important? Help me face up to them and then STEP SLOWLY THROUGH THEM. Please, God.
Story teller,
A Moment with God 
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