Chris Collins describes swimming with great white sharks and noticing how seals avoid attack by acting confident and maintaining eye contact. He connects this to human social dynamics: if you act like you belong somewhere, people won't challenge you. David Blaine's book explores this idea on page 220.
It's like when I go in the open water with the great white sharks. I know that people have this sense that we can't rationally understand. So do animals. They're very intuitive. They can feel an irregularity. So a great white won't go after a seal, even if hungry, if the seal is completely in charge. I've seen seals fuck with the great whites constantly, and it's because they look right at the shark. The shark is conservative with its energy and doesn't want to struggle. So if I come in there and I act like I know I belong there, it's too confusing. It's like the psychology of driving in New York City. If you park the car in front of a hydrant, you're gonna get a ticket. But if you park it sticking out into the middle of the street in front of the hydrant, you're not going to get a ticket. Because it's so abstract. The person writing tickets thinks, wait a second, this person must be right around the car, because it doesn't make sense. David Blaine. A secret has two faces, a bandit, page 220, an interview with David Blaine.
