Pecking orders are simple. Strap a traffic cone to your face and get to pecking. I believe in you, and your neck muscles.
Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure it, the height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. It's there, you can see it. It's there, it's a wave. And then it crashes into shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be for a little while.