Damien Enright: Unconscious survival facing the scourge of boyracers

Two monster tractors driven by boyracers, each towing a massive trailer, gun at high speed through the village, mounting the pavement I’m walking on.

I stay cool. I don’t follow the instructions of the life-preserving side of my brain to jump into the hedge of the cottage beside me but follow the instructions of the stupid side which says: “It’s okay, there’ll be at least two feet, that’s 65 whole centimetres, between you and the wheels as they pass.”

I continue walking. I don’t stop and back up against the hedge and suck my belly in.

I walk on by. It’s extraordinary how the male of the species insists on heroics for the sake of self-assurance and dignity. What dignity?

The kid in the conning tower would hardly even see me as he passes.

He’s intent on piloting his bucking ship onto and along the pavement edge. He has enough to do. He’s god-in-the-cockpit. He’s a good driver and he knows it.

Wouldn’t your correspondent diving over a hedge make a great pub story!

It’s all to do with speed and pastoral pressure. I have nothing against reaping the silage, although I might have something against endless prairies.

Cows have to eat, and I drink milk and eat butter. I just wish the gatherers weren’t in such a hurry.

I just wish the other side of the narrow street wasn’t lined with cars.

It’s a hair-raising encounter for the pedestrian; the tremor in the asphalt would make the bald sprout hairs and the bare-faced sprout moustaches.

To begin with, of course, I should have chosen the opposite pavement, sheltered by the line of cars.

However, how is the innocent pedestrian to know that, by taking the airy pavement, he has Mad Max in his future?

The same can happen on a country road to a walker, what with tractor-trailers so wide and rural byways so narrow and often fenced with Irish sharp-thorned sceacs.

Lord save us, doesn’t the rich grass have to be harvested? Flying silage and/or bale carriers are simply a hazard of stepping outdoors.

Continuing on my way, not noticeably unbalanced by the slipstream of the tractors, the overground racket, and underfoot tremors, my mind wanders to the different response females might betray upon a behemoth bearing down on them.

They would, almost certainly, back up into the hedge and flatten themselves by a process of suction and contour. This would be sensible.

That decided, I go on to consider how much more sensible are women than men.

This level-headedness must have evolved with Lucy, the first humanoid, and other females of her species.

The first step in protecting the children with whom they had bonded after the pains of childbirth would be to protect themselves.

The men were also protectors, of course, and heroic instinct went with the muscles as naturally as caution went with the womb.

It was man’s role to protect the tribe and to bring in the bacon, often a wild hog with razor-sharp tusks capable of ripping the hunter from “nave to chaps” (as Shakespeare so graphically put it).

Women were as cautious as men were reckless, each controlled by genes that instructed them.

Women would bear children, pick and gather roots and berries: They, likely, became the first gardeners even as the men were still hunting in the transition period before agriculture became the mainstay of our tribe.

Women stayed close to home; in their care was the future of the species. The men ventured forth with their spears, to hunt.

They were expendable to a degree: a widow could get another man and beget more children.

They weren’t entirely disposable: they had the function of defenders and of using their larger frames to do the heavy lifting.

It seems that some ancient skills are still evident in men and women today.

Women do not handle missiles with the expertise of men. Men do not have the delicate, pinpoint accuracy of women.

Would you ask a man or a woman to extract a fly from your eye?

Skimming stones on water perfectly exemplifies gender difference.

To men, it comes naturally while women do it awkwardly and unsuccessfully (not all women, of course).

Spontaneous acts tap our ancient skills best: They fail when sought after.

Standing on a balcony, I absently toss a twig into a pool scarcely larger than a salad bowl 6m away.

I could never have done it had I stopped to take aim. I notice that waste paper lands in the bin only if I’m not thinking about it. Searching the bushes, my wife sees blackberries that I don’t.

Some ancient skills unconsciously survive.