I am interested in automatic reactions that my body can perform without my thinking about them or intending them. My friend told me long ago to think of a rustling in the leaves near me, having an alarm reaction and then finding that my own foot had stepped on a branch that did the rustling.
The Writer's Almanac discussed a little of the writings of Richard Wright, author of Native Son. Here he has traveled from the South he has always known to the city of Chicago;
Wright found a city where Blacks and whites sat on streetcars next to each other, bought newspapers at the same newsstands, ate at the same restaurants. He'd always known the rules in the segregated south, but in Chicago he suddenly had no idea how he was supposed to act. At his first job as a dishwasher he was shocked when a white waitress asked him to help tie her apron. He did so, and later wrote, "I continued my work, filled with all the possible meanings that tiny, simple, human event could have meant to any Negro in the South where I had spent my hungry days."
I have heard that mammals like you and me have an immediate and gut reaction to infants and little kids. We have automatic delight, comfort and protective reactions, even if we are male.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=babies+get+their+first+pair+of+glasses
You can feel and experience that reaction if you look at babies getting their first glasses. Not everyone needs glasses but they can be wonderful if you do need them.
