Write Like a Seagull

Next time you’re so lucky as to be at the beach, spend a little time watching seagulls. No, I’m serious. Just watch them. If you do that a while, you’ll see one of them lean its head down and take a look at its feet. Soon enough, you’ll see another one do it.

Why do they do that? Time spent looking at feet is time that could be spent fishing or begging for your French fries. (Or just flat out stealing them. What are you gonna do? You don’t have wings.)

A scientist of my acquaintance explained it to me like this: Looking at their feet is a displacement activity for seagulls. Of course, then he had to explain what a displacement activity is. In short, it’s something you do when you don’t know what to do. If foot-looking seems funny to you, think about what you do when you’re not sure what to do. For me, it’s doomscrolling on my phone and standing in front of an open refrigerator when I’m not hungry. I imagine a seagull would find these things hilarious.

A 1967 article in Nature described the phenomenon and suggested three reasons for it. When we find ourselves doing something reflexively that doesn’t fit with what we were doing or what we’re planning to do next, it’s usually because we’re having conflict getting motivated, we’re feeling frustrated at a lack of our ability to complete something we’ve started, or we are being thwarted in our ability to do what we want to do next. (I’m not an animal behaviorist, so if you want to interpret the research for yourself, the link is below but this is the gist of it.) When I apply those ideas to my own experience as a writer who doesn’t always prioritize her work as much as she’d like, I understand myself a little better. I’m a little less hard on myself when I can’t manage to land the plane on a big project. I tell myself it’s okay that I got off-track, and I just need to get back to the project and tackle it with all I’ve got. I forgive myself when I get behind on a book because life got in the way. Then (and this is the important part), I get back to the computer and try again.

What if you made writing your displacement activity? How much more would you get done if you made it a habit to sit down and write when you found yourself with an hour between important chores? Or maybe you might even sit down to write instead of doing important chores, but I am really not the person to listen to when it comes to staying on top of maintenance tasks. (Because I’m usually writing.)

Bibliography

DELIUS, J. Displacement Activities and Arousal. Nature 214, 1259–1260 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2141259a0