"Look at your inner deer, and before you go to bed, see if there is nothing that poses the slightest danger to it from sunrise to sunset." The slender girl in a pink tutu stood on the brightly lit stage I recited this poem on the Internet, twisting my waist shyly while reading it.She memorized those words—maybe they were just sounds to her—proficiently, without paying attention to the content of the poem.In the dark, my neighbor on the fourth row whispered to his wife: "It's some boring, old-fashioned stuff again." I didn't say anything (hush in the hall), but I thought she was right.You can argue about the quality of poems written by the Belgian Antwerp poetess Alice Nahan a hundred years ago, but there is much more to them than "boring".

I want to say to my neighbors that we should look back at what we've done every now and then without breaking that tutu.We should ask ourselves, is everything okay?Did it "bring the slightest danger" to the deer?Only by keeping a distance can we learn from our mistakes, don't you, sir?This way we can get to the source of the error and thus prevent it from happening again in the future.I would like to advise that gentleman to spend time thinking about it, the key to which is: keep a certain distance to see things. Yes, keep your distance!If you're stuck doing things all the time, you won't be able to analyze why you made mistakes, let alone understand them.Sometimes we have to sleep for a night first, and it's not for nothing, don't you think, sir?

I told him in my heart that whoever has the courage to objectively analyze his own wrong path as he analyzes other people's mistakes can avoid mistakes from happening again and feel very comfortable.Recognizing your mistakes is not only harmless, but also beneficial.I looked at my neighbor in the dark, and he also glanced at me quickly, his eyes seemed to say: "Mr. Pastor, you'd better mind your own business." I shyly turned my eyes to the stage , the girl is still reciting: "Did I let one eye cry and blur the slate; did I say a word or two of love to those who have no love..." Well, it seems that the neighbor still has some truth .Those words of Alice Nahan's, however, gave me a good start and let me go on.

I'm not just talking about the mistakes we make and the wrong paths we take, it's also good to have a closer look at our other behaviors from time to time, to understand ourselves better; If you know why you do or don't do certain things, life will be more interesting.Humans are an interesting species that deserves a good look.If an alien watches a documentary about the behavior of people on earth, he will definitely be addicted to it.Human beings are so interesting, but we don't know it yet, because we are in charge and always in the play, so we can't see it.When an actor is performing, he cannot appreciate the beautiful scene.Just like the slender girl on the stage can't see how cute she is shy. In front of her, there is only a dark hall.Again, maintaining a certain distance is key.This distance refers not to a night's sleep, but to a kind of glasses.We have to wear it to see things that we can't normally see.It's like night vision goggles, or that thing I saw in movies that can see through people's clothes.

The glasses I'm talking about aren't science fiction, they really exist, and they're thanks to Charles Darwin.This gentleman's works and opinions have therefore gained value, and can be seen everywhere in the field of biology and beyond.He taught us how living things adapt to their surroundings and how they change from generation to generation when the environment changes.This is the process of natural selection, from which evolution arises.The world that Darwin saw was the same as that seen by everyone, but he had a pair of glasses and could see and understand more things than ordinary people.He gave us this pair of glasses as a gift, and today we can learn to observe and see things that others cannot see.When we look at this vibrant world, it is like watching an interesting 3D movie.It's even more interesting if you look at the cast - we're in it ourselves!Do we no longer belong to this real world by the end of the play?Let's put this scene aside, sit down on a recliner, and watch our own behavior, "just before we go to bed."

I assure you, this is not a heavy academic work.No one likes to watch heavy movies before going to bed.So I positioned this book as a light, easy-to-read, and easy-to-digest read, and then told the story on this basis.This does not mean that I can turn my back on scholarly work by using violence against science, but I want to tell the story in pieces so that the reader can read it.With Darwin, we will wander the landscape of human behavior, picking a flower here and a twig there.The stories are big and small.Sometimes it's small, like why do people cross their arms over their chest when they talk; sometimes it's big, with general questions like, are you still the same person you were when you were born?Why do people die?I threw all the stories together consciously, jumping from a little flower to a branch and back again.In fact, this is also the case in daily life: ideas first appear in our heads in disorder, and then thinking begins.The same goes for this book.It is my hope that the reader will gain an understanding of the way of thinking by reading this collection of Darwinian essays.

Some stories in the book are not in a systematic sequence, and readers can cross-read them.Some previously mentioned topics will be repeated later, so it is still necessary to read each story individually. Each story takes place in a different location or in a different environment.When an idea pops into my head, it acts like a spring that urges me to write it down.I typed this preface with my iPhone on the beach in the south of France, maybe you can still smell the sand.Sometimes I'm sitting in a train with my pen at the beck and call, sometimes in a sidewalk café or a hotel, but mostly in meetings.

The diversity of places and environments is actually easy to explain: as a behavioral biologist, wherever I go, I am interested in humans and their behavior.On the street, on the bus, and in the supermarket, I kept my eyes open, looking for materials.There are a lot of materials, and this is not a problem.The key is that I have to control myself and not be induced by it every time to "dissect" people's behavior.I have to quiet myself and you from time to time, so I don't have to "open my stomach" right away. The stories in this book have previously been blogged on the website of the science monthly Eos.I am grateful to Rolf Schuls and Reynoldt Vonbeck for their suggestion to organize the blog posts into a volume.It is a great honor to contribute to a journal that promotes popular science.Science progresses at a speed that is even faster than the speed of light, and it is precisely because of this that the public is less and less aware of science, which is a pity.While the science stories are getting more and more complex, they're really, really interesting. Aurora magazine offers everyone a chance to savor science stories.

Human behavior has been on paper since creation, but has rarely been studied.Religion, politics, philosophy... There are always written on the paper what should be done and what should not be done. "Behavior" is not seen as a species-specific, biologically functional system, but as something created and prescribed by humans.Human beings are rational, above everything else on earth.With development, people are becoming more and more aware that human behavior exists independently and can and should be studied, so as to better understand human beings themselves.Behavior becomes part of the human being, but the human spirit is used as a guide, because man is rational, superior to other creatures, and his spirit is far above everything on earth.Fortunately, we now have behavioral biology, which takes a broader and more realistic perspective and asks questions like "where did everything come from?"Darwin gave us the tools to study this question.I will try to develop a narrative on this, and I hope you will read each story as the end of the day, just before bedtime.One by one, night after night, one can see more clearly the essence of oneself, and thereby understand one's true self.I wish you good luck on this journey through the human action landscape.

I wrote the title of the book on a small slip of paper and gave it to my neighbor.He asked, "Alice Nahan's too?" I said, "No, it's... Hey, forget it." I saw him staring blankly at the crumpled paper.At this time, the girl in the pink tutu bowed deeply, and there was thunderous applause from the audience.Her request to take a look at my inner fawn has been completed, and my story has only just begun.