complete draft of "Friendship Practices"

People really don't do things! I literally had this idea at least six
years ago, and I'm only now finishing the draft, which is ... less
than 1000 words. It shouldn't take more than two days to write 1000
words. How many day-equivalents did I spend doing less valuable things
for those six years?

diff --git a/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md b/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
index 1cbd4d9..976749f 100644 (file)
--- a/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
+++ b/content/drafts/friendship-practices-of-the-secret-sharing-plain-speech-valley-squirrels.md
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 Title: Friendship Practices of the Secret-Sharing Plain Speech Valley Squirrels
-Date: 2017-01-01 5:00
+Date: 2022-08-30 5:00
 Category: fiction
 Tags: epistemic horror, deniably allegorical
 Status: draft
@@ -20,19 +20,11 @@ Another adaptive infromation-processing instinct in subspecies 9792 and 9794 was
 
 The coincidental conjunction of a friendship-forming instinct, a novel-secret-seeking instinct, _and_ a nearby distinct subspecies with similar properties, led to some unusual behavior patterns. Given the different survival-relevant opportunities in their respective habitats, each subspecies predominantly hoarded _different_ secrets: the secret of how to jump and land on the thinner branches of the reedy pilot tree was of little relevance to the daily activity of a west-valley ground squirrel, but the secret of how to bury nuts without making it obvious that the ground had been upturned was of little import to an east-valley tree squirrel.
 
-But the squirrels' _novelty-seeking instincts_ didn't track such distinctions. Secrets from one subspecies thus functioned as a superstimulus to the other subspecies, on account of being so exotic, thus making "special" cross-species friendships particularly desirable and sought-after.
+But the squirrels' _novelty-seeking instincts_ didn't track such distinctions. Secrets from one subspecies thus functioned as a superstimulus to the other subspecies, on account of being so exotic, thus making "special" cross-subspecies friendships particularly desirable and sought-after.
 
-At the same time, subspecies differences in social instincts also made them particularly _frustrating_, as friendships: for example, west-valley ground squirrels tended to have a more anxious disposition (reflecting the need to be alert to predators on open terrain), whereas east-valley tree squirrels tended to have a more rambunctious nature.
+At the same time, subspecies differences in social instincts also made them particularly _frustrating_, as friendships. Particular squirrels had a subspace of their behavior that characterized them as different from other individuals of the same age and sex: _personality_ being the technical term (coined in Dunbar's volume on social systems). The friendship-forming instinct was most stimulated between squirrels with similar or at least compatible personalities, and the two subspecies had different personality distributions that resulted in frequent incompatibilities: for example, west-valley ground squirrels tended to have a more anxious disposition (reflecting the need to be alert to predators on open terrain), whereas east-valley tree squirrels tended to have a more rambunctious nature, which tended to put west-valley ground squirrels on edge.
 
-[TODO: frustration cont'd ...]
-
-At this, some extremely naïve novice students of historical mammology inquire: [TODO ...]
-
-To which it is replied: 
-
-A few particularly naïve students inquire further: [TODO ...]
-
-To which it is replied: there's _no reason whatsoever_ for evolution to select for that, _dummy_. What's wrong with you?
+Really, the typical west-valley ground squirrel and the typical east-valley tree squirrel wouldn't have been friends at all, if not for the tantalizing allure of exotic secrets. Thus, special cross-subspecies friendships tended to be successfully formed much less often than they were desired.
 
 And so, many, many times in the days of auld lang syne, a squirrel in a burrow or a tree would sadly settle down to rest for the night, lamenting, "I wish I had a special friend. Someone who understood me. Someone to share my secrets with."