Wild Earth Integration

It happens all the time. Just when you think you Know A Thing, you take one more look and — bammo — your world turns upside down.

I’m all about seeing what we can learn from the natural world. You’re here, so you already know that. The latest in spider news actually holds a big secret for you – are you ready?

They discovered a vegetarian spider. *cue daunting music*

No takers? Bear with me.

Ok, here’s the scene: in the tropics of Mexico and Costa Rica, scientists have been studying this fellow for awhile now. Back in the late 1800s, scientists named this spider Bagheera kiplingi. Sound familiar? Literary buffs (or Disney enthusiasts) will recognize Bagheera as the straight-laced, slightly uptight panther from Kipling’s the Jungle Book. Nice little homage there.

Fast-forward now. So they’re out there in the forest checking the spider out (as one does) and they notice it using stealthy jungle-spider moves to attack its prey. But here’s the rub – it would leap Tobey Maguire style not to catch bugs or any other critter – it was catching acacia buds. No insects for this spider, he’s a veggiesaurus. They use their mad spider skillz to avoid ants (who protect the acacia buds), and chow down on a plant-rich diet.

Yeah, yeah – I hear you. You’re not into spiders. You’re not a scientist in Costa Rica spending your days swatting flies under a canopy of greenery. So why should you care? Think about it.

There are 40,000 spider species (that we know of) wandering around the globe. Until now, they have all been classified as meat-eaters. So if you’re a scientist out there, knee-deep in the fact that 40,000 out of 40,000 spiders are carnivores, how likely are you to notice that one teeny spider is munching on a plant?

How many people walked by this spider because they saw what they wanted to see? Or because they saw what everybody else saw?

Everytime you look around you, your brain fills in the gaps of your perception. This is why you can read sentences missing whole chunks of words.

C n y u rea th s?

See?

So your brain can fill in the letters that are missing, because statistically the letter ‘a’ goes between ‘c’ and ‘n’ more often than ‘p’ or ‘e’. We all know that ‘cpn’ is not a word.

This is how your brain works with language, but I’d bet you a dollar to a donut that overall perception follows the same patterns. If 100% of the time when you see a flower and it’s not talking to you, you’re going to develop some pretty strong opinions about plants. Let’s face it – sometimes ‘facts’ can drag you down.

So what does the veggiesaurus spider teach us? Do your absolute best to approach your life (problems, solutions, work, writing, creations) from a new standpoint, as often as you can.

Sometimes, all it takes is a walk outside to clear your head. Write down everything you think you know about a situation, and challenge yourself to counter each point, as strongly as you can. Create within yourself a mindset that allows you to be surprised. Develop a state of mind wherein you suspend judgment. Or, maybe just don’t be such a stubborn arse all the time.

Depending on patterns is inevitable, and most of the time it will help keep you alive. After all, [hot stove + hand = bad] is probably a good pattern to notice. But too often, we miss out on a lot because we’re seeing what we’ve geared ourselves to see. Lightning can strike, but normally it occurs in the form of a quiet insight. Train yourself to notice the vegetarian spiders of the world, and you just might be surprised what else you find.

See you next time. Til then, I’m gone, man… solid gone.

Artists and writers, listen up. Scientists, you too. We all play nice here and this post is for both of you.

Looking for something to really help you open up and create a masterpiece? What about a clever trick that just might lead you to stunning scientific epiphanies? Are you ready?

Sfumato. Kind of sounds like a weird sort of tomato-fungus hybrid, doesn’t it? But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sfumato can change your life.

Literally, sfumato means ‘to go up in smoke’. It is normally used to describe an Italian painting technique, most notably demonstrated by our pal Da Vinci and his Mona Lisa. The wispy thin layers of paint endlessly applied over each other created one of the most ambiguously beautiful images in our history. Sfumato is why this painting has become one of the most talked about icons of all time. Is she smiling? Smirking? Pregnant? Happy? Innocent? Seductive? What is her deal? The Mona Lisa personifies sfumato because we really have no idea what is going on with her.

But sfumato is more than just a paint technique.

In life, sfumato is the principle of accepting and embracing the unknown. It is seeing the paradoxes and contradictions – the gray areas, the smoky hazes and the veils between ideas. Da Vinci once said that the things in life that make us the most happy will also make us the most sad. That’s a paradox if I’ve ever heard one. To me, this is a lot like what Achilles says in Troy: “Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed.” Life is full of contradictory ideas like this. Joy/sorrow, journey/destination, good/evil, incubation/output, change/permanence, logic/imagination; we live with the tension between these ideas everyday, but we don’t really think about it. The principle of sfumato allows you to contemplate these ideas simultaneously, while accepting the fact that you just don’t know.

The Big, Bad Unknown

Typically, when faced with the unknown we get anxious. We freak out. We enter denial. We become control freaks, desperately trying to align our world in clean, right angles and tidy, colour coded boxes. But this is no way to view the world – at least not if you want to do something extraordinary. You must be willing to not know, which inherently means you are willing to absolutely fall on your arse and fail remarkably. When you start a new project, admit it – you have no idea where it may lead. You may create the next bestseller or the world’s heaviest paperweight – who knows? You might seek the cure for cancer and find it, or you might lead the way to something else or (just as remarkably) add to the pile of ten thousand ideas that don’t work. You just don’t know. Embrace that.

Why Sfumato Is Where It’s At

If you’re okay with the concept of uncertainty, you are open to more. More sights, more sounds, more tastes, more experiences, more ideas. If something comes at you when you’re hell bent on forcing certainty, the chances are good that you will miss it, because it wasn’t part of your plan. It might even bug you. If you are open to doubt, you are open to all sides – the yesses and the nos, the rights and the wrongs. Most importantly, if you are open to the unknown, you won’t miss your hunches. And hunches, my friend, are quite possibly your best opportunity for success, in work and life.

Say it with me. Sfumato.

Allow yourself the possibility of seeing things differently.

Yes, this post is ambiguous. See my point?

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful..."

The macaw is a beautiful creature that is quite well known for its intelligence, bubbly birdsonality and downright eerie ability to mimic human speech. But since it’s International Macaw Day (I just declared it), I thought I would treat you to some trivia on our flashy, florid, feathered friends.

5. They are rowdy party goers. In other words, they love spending time in a big flock of 20-30 individuals. There are 17 different species of macaws and they’re all the life of the party. Just don’t ask them to keep it down, because they just won’t listen.

4. Don’t let the cute face fool you — the hyacinth macaw is the biggest of its kind, with a wingspan of four feet. They also have a tongue that has a bone in it, that helps them easily crack through the tough shells of nuts and seeds. Take that, Tweety.

3. They self-medicate. You know how you run off to the drugstore and grab yourself some of that pink stuff when you have a stomach ache? Animals do that too, they just don’t have ready access to drugstores. Instead, they use what’s around them. Macaws (and a whole truckload of other animals) have been known to eat damp soil, which helps to neutralize their stomach and all of its fruity-diet induced erks and aches.

2. They get married. Ok, so that was wildly anthropomorphic, but macaws really do mate for life. (In fact, I bet their ‘divorce’ rate is much better than ours…) Once a macaw has found its other half, they will breed together, groom each other, share food and quote Tennyson. Bottom line: if your marriage is in trouble, perhaps you should talk to a macaw.

1. Most of them are lefties. Yeah, you heard me. Lefties. Scientists have determined this by carefully filming and documenting dominant hand/claw preference for hours on end. They probably could have saved some time by trying to high-five them.

So there you have it. Up next, International Buy Me A Sandwich Day. Any takers?

As a writer and creative soul, I’ve hit a lot of blocks. Writer’s blocks, artist’s blocks, verbal blocks, Lego blocks – I’ve experienced them all.

One thing I’ve found that always helps is music. But not just any music. When times are tough and you need do something epic, you need to turn to the big guns. When you’ve got blocks, you need to blast them. And blast you shall – with decibels.

So here it is. The official Wild Earth Integration Top 10 List of Songs for when you Need to Kick Arse. Please note that these songs are geared to help beat the blocks, so you can do anything fantastic and difficult. Like write a paper, paint a picture, fight a ninja or solve world hunger. They are in random order, because, well, I am a commitment phobe when it comes to lists.

1. Queen – I Want To Break Free — For Pete’s sake, Freddy Mercury is wearing a mini-skirt and tights. You have to at least give him your attention for that. In all honesty though, this song can break down barriers in your mind, get you revved up and commit you to your task at hand. Wig optional.

2. Hans Zimmer - Chevaliers de Sangreal — You probably don’t even realize how many of Zimmer’s songs you have etched into your neurons. Seriously. Google him and you’ll see just how much of your brain he owns. This one in particular works its way up into an incredible crescendo that is worthy of the masterpiece you are creating. If I ever met Elvis, Einstein, Da Vinci – I’d want this song to be playing in the background.

3. Metallica – One –It is paramount here that you listen to the Metallica and Symphony version of this song. Not only is it an astounding piece of integration, mixing the Metal of the Ica with brass, strings and sophistication, ‘One’ is just one of those songs that gets inside your blood and makes it run just a little bit faster. Perfect for getting your butt in gear.

4. Moulin Rouge - Come What May — Yes, yes, I hear you. Moulin Rouge is a musical and the actors aren’t even ‘real singers’. But hear me out. Ewan McGregor has a voice. Not just “oh, yeah, he can kinda sing, maybe at parties and stuff.” He has a voice. The sheer ‘beltiness’ of this scene is enough to get through any block, and you’ll be on your way to success before you can say ‘Why is John Lequizamo so short?’

5. Lynyrd Skynyrd – Free Bird — ‘Nuff said.

6. The Who – Love Reign O’er Me — Like Metallica’s ‘One’, this song gets inside you and makes you forget about what you were thinking about (which is how much you want to be a rockstar/artist/writer/non-loser) and takes you to a whole different arena. That arena is the one wherein You. Just. Rock.

7. u2 - Beautiful Day — Ironically enough, I’ve heard at least 5 people say that if they were to set a song everyday to wake them up, this would be it. Maybe it’s the trembling guitar riffs, maybe it’s Bono’s glasses… but this song makes you feel like you can run a Marathon, shoes optional.

8. Elton John & George Michael — Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me — Of course, pretty much any Elton song could be on this list, the man could cough into a can and it would become a hit record overnight. But I digress. This is one that is close to my heart because it has gotten me through many a 4am-why-can’t-I-finish-this-sentence-already writing dip. It’s passion, and that is exactly what you need when you want to kick some serious … well, you know.

9. Great Big Sea – Ordinary Day — This list wouldn’t be complete without some Canadian content – (Represent!) Great Big Sea is one of those bands that appeals to all ages. Even my own father, who is prone to listen to ‘Easy Sunday Country’ on the AM radio, gets the appeal of GBS. The beating rhythms and raspy front man work wonders on a mind that is heavy with (as yet) unattained goals.

10. Michael Jackson – Thriller — I debated long and hard before including this song on the list, mainly because it has been so hyped up in the past couple of decades. Then I realized – that’s part of its charm. You just can’t listen to this song without getting up and trying your best to do the moves (if you can get more than three people doing this in a mall with you, send me footage). In the very least, this song will elicit you to chair-dance while doing the zombie head jolts. There is no such thing as a block when MJ is in the house.

So what have we learned tonight, folks? The key to getting rid of blocks and kicking absolute arse does not lie in rational thinking about goals, or drowning one’s sorrows in root brusky. It lies in passion. Passion for what you are doing and passion for why you are doing it. Whether these songs are from your favorite genres of music or not, the one thing they all share is passion. And that, my friends, is quite contagious.

Now it’s your turn. What music helps get out of a rut?

Note: Songs that are better left for non-productive days = anything by James Blunt.

Hey folks! Check out this dandy article on neuroscience and music – published by the fine folks over at Cramscience. If you’re into popular science and hit music, you’ll love it. Click here to find it – hope you enjoy!