larvae feed inside the host caterpillar until ready to pupate, and then they eat their way out of the host caterpillar’s body. The host caterpillar is literally turned into a zombie and is generally either dead or mori- bund at this time. They then generally spin cocoons and pupate. As adults, parasitoid wasps feed primarily on nectar from flowers.
We are left to ponder:
• Are you raising Moses to eventually rebel against your own Egyptian government?
• Have your unpatented innovations been stolen by other inventors?
• Has one of the other countries been stealing your country’s tech- nological know-how?
• Have your trade secrets been compromised and you don’t know what happened?
• What is turning your beautiful dreams into nightmare? Yourself or others?
• Why couldn’t you become the beautiful butterfly that you have
Par t 3 nature’s Political i ntrigues
always wanted to be instead of the poor caterpillar that got brain- washed and is literally a zombie?
There are people, things, events, and habits of ours that can encroach upon our ability to meet our goals in life. They may be small and one or two may not have much of an impact, if any, but over time if we don’t deal with them, we will be dramatically slowed down in our aims, stopped in our progress, having eventually wasted our valuable life to them.
• They could be a particular bad addictive behavior or habit.
• They could be long cell phone conversations, junk TV shows, end- less Internet surfing, or other time wasters.
• They could be how we mismanage our diet and physical well-being.
• They could be neglecting our vital relationships with family and friends.
• They could be self-deprecating falsehoods that we tell ourselves, saying that we can never be a success.
• They could be our attitude towards life, getting more pessimistic and losing all vitality and vigor as we get older.
Most of the above elements build up over time and will rarely bring us to a halt immediately. But they will eventually, and in addition, we will also be turned into a real-life zombie.
Chapter 4 Stolen Elections, Democracy in Disguise, Etc.
8
Stories of stolen elections hit the headlines throughout the world. All over the globe, democracies and dictatorships have their fair share of the unscrupulous practice whereby the perpetrators modify the vote counts to suit their interests of keeping their power base.
Many governments have carried out several reforms rendering their countries more democratic. At the same time, the same governments imprison increasing numbers of writers and opponents of the regime. How do these go together?
Occupy Wall Street was the US movement that eventually spread across the globe by tapping into broad frustration and even anger about big corporate profits, tax breaks for the rich, corporate lobbying in Congress, and bank bailouts at a time when the poor and middle class were losing ground in a generally sour economy. This was a protest at stolen financial health.
Arab Spring refers to the democratic uprisings that arose indepen- dently and spread across the Arab world in 2011. The movement originated in Tunisia in December 2010 and quickly took hold in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. The discontented people of Tunisia and Egypt toppled the old regimes through protests, which do share some characteristics with revolu- tions. However, the upheavals in Bahrain and Libya were caused by religious conflicts and tribal conflicts, respectively. The upheaval in Yemen was caused by tribal conflicts, the conflicts between south- ern separatist groups and the central government, and the interven- tion of Al-Qaeda. Furthermore, Syria is plagued by social, political,
Par t 3 nature’s Political i ntrigues
religious, and ethnic conflicts. The situation in the Arab world varies from country to country.
How do we realize our true selves? What are our true goals?
What is the real purpose of our being? What are we truly meant to accomplish?
These are simple questions that have plagued mankind since he was capable of language and logical thought. They bring up the question about “what is reality?” Being able to grasp the truth and understand what really is existence all about will set us free from the notorious cuckoo and parasitic wasp.
Are we slaves to this illusory “reality” even while erroneously believing that, as we are, we are awake and have free will? Are the cuckoos and parasitic wasps creating the world that has been pulled over our eyes
to blind us from the truth?
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know some- thing. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there.
As we grow into adults, we experience ourselves, life, and the world around us less and less directly. We no longer live in the Here and Now, but in the past (memory), in the future (imagination), and in a false present built up from memory and imagination.
There was a time when we had influence, ideas, and energy. What hap- pened? There was a time when things were going well and the future looked bright. What happened?
Are you willing to spend more time working towards turning the pre- dicament around than spending time regretting?
Are you willing to expand more efforts to prepare for the future rather
Life Lessons f r om nature
than relying on the limited ideas of the past?
Are you willing to keep growing, keep learning, and keep expanding your influence so that you can honestly proclaim that the best is yet to come?
Are you willing to take actions to ensure a world of better tomorrow for yourself and humanity?
Are you willing to leave the world a better place than you came from?
Part 4 Nature’s Scientific and
Technological Prowess
8
Biomimicry / Biomimetics
Michael Pawlyn: You could look at nature as being like a catalog of products, and all of those are benefited from a 3.8 billions years of research and development period. It makes sense to use it and explore some of the ideas.
Biomimicry is a design discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. The core idea is that Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with: energy, food production, climate control, non-toxic chemistry, transportation, packaging, and a whole lot more.
Biomimicry is rapidly spreading and growing in academic institutions all over the globe! Professors, instructors, researchers, and students— inspired by nature—are creating innovative ways to teach, learn, and use biomimicry at universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad.
What follows is a list of some of the fascinating examples of biomim- icry / biomimetics discussed in Dr. Bharat Bhushan’s review:
• Ancient examples such as the Chinese trying to make artificial silk
• Birds inspiring aircraft and wing design
• The construction of neural networks based upon “the desire to mimic the human brain”
• “The existence of biocells and DNA serves as a source of inspira- tion for nanotechnologists, who hope to one day build self-assem- bled molecular-scale devices”
Part 4 nature’s scientific and technological Prowess
• Modeling the patterns by which spiders produce webs to create a “‘virtual spider robot’ that builds virtual webs, which perfect- ly mimic the visual architecture of real webs of the garden cross spider”
• Light refraction in bird feathers and butterfly wings modeled to create better display screens
• Self-sharpening teeth on many animals, such as vertebrates and echinoderms, being copied to produce better cutting tools
• “[P]roteins are being used to control materials formation in practi- cal engineering towards self-assembl
ed, hybrid, functional materi- als structure”
• Mimicking the “climbing and peeling ability of geckos” to create climbing robots
• Tire treads inspired by the shape of toe pads on tree frogs
• Speedo’s “Fastskin bodysuit,” used by many Olympic swimmers, which recreates properties of shark skin
• Seashells inspiring better ceramics
• Studying self-healing properties of biological systems to produce polymers and polymer composites capable of mending cracks
• Polar bear–inspired furs, textiles, and thermal collectors
• Spiny hooks on plant seeds and fruits inspiring Velcro
• Mimicking mechanisms of photosynthesis and chemical energy conversion to create cheaper solar cells
• Studying the light refractive properties of moth eyes to produce solar panels with less light reflection
Bharat Bhushan, “Biomimetics: lessons from nature—an overview,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A, Vol. 367,
1445–1486 (2009)
Part 5 When Animals Foster Man
8
True Stories of Feral Children
A feral child is a human child who has lived away from human contact from a very young age, and has little or no experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language. Feral chil- dren are confined by humans (often parents), brought up by animals, or live in the wild in isolation. There have been over one hundred re- ported cases of feral children.
Tarzan is a fictional character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was a feral child raised in the African jungles by the “great apes”; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer.
In real life, many feral children have been found all over the globe. Each of these wilderness children have purportedly lived the ways of the jungle, learned the language of the adopted family, and survived for years away from all human activities.
• Could a child really survive alone in the forest?
• Would animals care for rather than eat a human baby?
• And if left in the wilderness, can a child forget its human origins and transform into a wild beast?
The first really famous feral child was Wild Peter, “a naked, brownish, black-haired creature” captured near Helpensen in Hanover in 1724, when he was about 12. He climbed trees with ease, lived off plants, and seemed incapable of speech. He refused bread, preferring to strip the bark from green twigs and suck on the sap; but he eventually learnt to eat fruits and vegetables.
Life Lessons f r om nature
Two young girls were said to have been discovered under the care of a she-wolf in Godamuri, India, in 1920. The girls were taken to an orphanage in Midnapore (now part of Orissa). The children—Kamala, aged eight, and Amala, aged eighteen months—behaved exactly like small wild animals. They slept during the day and woke by night. They remained on all fours, enjoyed raw meat, and were given to biting and attacking other children if provoked. They could smell raw meat from a distance, and they had an acute sense of sight and hearing. The young- est child, Amala, died one year later, but Kamala lived for nine years in the orphanage until she died of illness at the age of seventeen. Kamala did eventually acquire a small vocabulary, but she remained very differ- ent from other children until the time of her death.
For six years, Oxana Malaya survived on raw meat and scraps and spent her life living in a kennel with dogs. Totally abandoned by her alcohol- ic mother and father, she was discovered behaving more like an animal than a human child. She ran on all fours, panted with her tongue out, bared her teeth and barked, just like the dogs she had been living with. Human infants are born without any culture. They must be trans- formed by their parents, teachers, and others into a member of the human society culturally and socially. Parents and role models should understand that the sacrifices of today make for a better tomorrow, for their children and for their communities.
To Attentive Parents
• Raising children is a noble activity in itself.
• Ensure that their kids know how high a priority they are.
• Show the children they love them by their actions and allocation of time.
Modeling for Success
The feral children also tell of the tragic consequence of role models whom we model after. “Monkey boys,” “wolf girls,” “gazelle boys,” and even an “ostrich boy” are all part of the lore of the feral children. We
Par t 5 w hen a ni M als f oster Man
become who we modeled after. Since we all want success in life, we should model after successful people. Be in the company of them.
So the more important issue to achieve success socially and in all areas of your life should be to observe the success blueprint behind extremely successful people and then re-creating it for yourself.
A success blueprint generally comprises of their beliefs, values, mind- set, thought processes, and attitude, etc.
In short, it is about achieving an outcome by studying how someone else goes about achieving it. When you model after a successful person’s success blueprint, it helps you to replicate their success and also their states of peak performance and motivation…
So how do you discover all these about successful people?
• Well, first you need to identify a few role models who are at where you want to be.
• Next, try to find out as much as you can about them either through interacting with them or through their websites, biographies, at- tending their seminars, or buying their products/courses, etc.
• Observe as much as you can about them, which includes: their physiology, beliefs, attitudes, mental strategies, and internal repre- sentation system.
• Next up, start utilizing it in yourself and also redesign it to help you attain your goals.
• Modeling can be utilized in EVERY area of your life… In your health, business, relationships, sports…
So start making use of it today!
If you’re perpetually feeling depressed, start observing people around you who are always motivated and happy… And just by modeling the way they smile and talk, it will trigger the same emotional states in
Life Lessons f r om nature
you! And trust me, you do NOT have to wait till everything is going smoothly for you before you start feeling happy.
In fact, it’s the other way around! Start taking control of your emo- tional states and that will in turn drive you to take the actions required for success…
Index
8
A
Accomplishments 4, Act 2, Action 8,9, Acuity 7, Aims 8, Alisher
Burkhanovich Usmanov 9, Altai Mountains 6, Analyzes, Arab Spring
70, Aspirations 7, Attack 8, Audacity 8,
B
Barren 6, Bill Gates 9, Biomimicry 74, Biomimetics 74, Bird’s-eye
view 6, Brainstorm 8, BRICs 10,
C
Career 7, Casino 12, Cell Phone 12, Chance 8,9 Charge 8, Chinese
74, Cicadas 3, Cigarette 12, Climax 4, Confidence 9, Consistency 4, Consultants 8, Corporations 7, Countries 7, Crisis 7, Cycle 4,
D
Dangers 7, Defined 8, Democratic 65, Development 8, Dire
Situation 19, Disappointment 4, Disaster 3, 5, Discouraged 4, Dreams 4, 7, DNA 74, Dr. Bharat Bhushan 74, Drink 12, Duke of Wellington 48,
E
Eagles 6, Elections 65, Emotional 7, Emotional Abuse 29, Encourage
14, Endeavor 8, Endure 5, Equip 6,8, Excuses 8, Explorers 4, Extramarital Affairs 12, Extraordinary 9,10,
F
Facebook 12, Families 7, Famous 4, Fast Pace 2, Feral Children 77,
Flight 9, Forward 8, Fulfill 7, Forecasts 7, Future 4, 7,8,
G
GDP 7, Genghis Khan 6, Goals 2,8, Golden Eagle 6, Grow 4,8,
Graves 20,
H
/> Hanging Gardens of Babylon 40, Hannibal 59, Hans Christian
Anderson 25, Hamsters 21, Hardship 5, Hesitate 9, Horizon 10,
I
Ideas 4, Individuals 7, Indoctrination 28,29 Influence 4,
Infrastructure 8, Ingenious 9, Initiative 9, Innovative 8,10, Insects 15, Instinct 7, Interaction 10, International 10, Inventors 4, Investment 8,
J
Julius Caesar 48, Justify 8,
K
Kazakh 6,
L
Limelight 5, Limitations 8, Lionesses 17, Livelihood 7,
M
Master 3, Masters 5, Mayfly 2, Mentality 4, Metamorphosis 4,
Mice 14, Mindset 8, Management 8, Mass Level Extinction 21, Mesmerizing 12, Momentum 8, Mongolia 6, Motivational 8,
N
Napoleon 48, 59, Napoleonic Wars 53, Nebuchadnezzar II 40, Never
Ending Challenges 32, Nonsensical 20, Nutritional Gradients 34,
O
Occupy Wall Street 70, Olympic 75, Opportunities 7,8, Organization
7, Otherworldly 12, Overshadow 20, Oxana Malaya 78,
P
Past glories 4, Path 7, Peak 4, Perceive 7, Perseverance 4, Perspectives
4, Pheromones 15, 63, Picture 7, Potential 8, Pounce 8, Powerful 7,
8, Predators 4, Predicament 4, Prince Christian Frederik 26, Priorities
3, Purpose 4,8,
Q
Qin Shi Huang 38, Quarry 17, Queen Bee 63,
R
Rabbit 12, Rain 20, Reality 7, Regret 2, Regrouping 7, Relationship