When I was ten, I took a trip to South Dakota with my family. While I was there, my father and I went on a hike and saw a buffalo. I learned several things that day.
I learned buffalo are much, much bigger than I imagined. I learned that just because an animal isn’t a predator doesn’t mean it isn’t wildly dangerous. And I learned that, unlike every wild animal I had met as a kid living in the suburbs, these animals will NOT run away just because a human makes noise at them. In fact, quite the opposite.
The buffalo charged us, and we ran.
But that’s how we learn! Misadventures make us smarter, if we pay attention.
